WASHINGTON, D.C., USA — Would you like to say you've been to space? Soon you can...sort of...with NASA's Message in a Bottle. Send your name into space on the Europa Clipper Spacecraft, heading to one of Jupiter's most intriguing moons.
NASA is gearing up for its upcoming mission to one of Jupiter's moons called Europa, where scientists believe a large ocean could exist under its layer of ice. The Europa Clipper spacecraft is scheduled to launch in October of 2024 It will journey roughly 1.8 billion miles to the icy moon, looking for conditions that could be "suitable for life."
Click here to find out how to send your name into space.
To commemorate the expedition, NASA asked U.S Poet Laureate, Ada Limon to write a poem that will also travel to Europa.
Arching under the night sky inky
with black expansiveness, we point
to the planets we know, we
pin quick wishes on stars. From earth,
we read the sky as if it is an unerring book
of the universe, expert and evident.
Still, there are mysteries below our sky:
the whale song, the songbird singing
its call in the bough of a wind-shaken tree.
We are creatures of constant awe,
curious at beauty, at leaf and blossom,
at grief and pleasure, sun and shadow.
And it is not darkness that unites us,
not the cold distance of space, but
the offering of water, each drop of rain,
each rivulet, each pulse, each vein.
O second moon, we, too, are made
of water, of vast and beckoning seas.
We, too, are made of wonders, of great
and ordinary loves, of small invisible worlds,
of a need to call out through the dark.
But why send a poem to space? NASA JPL Director Laurie Leshin says, "Space exploration is, is very awe inspiring. And I think poetry can evoke that in us as well. And so to me, it's, there's a lot more connections than separations between art and science."
And NASA wants you to also join in on the fun. While they can't physically send you to space, they can at least send your name with its "Message in a Bottle" campaign. Those who sign up online can get their name stenciled onto a microchip along with Limon's poem.
Meanwhile, the one thing Limon hopes people take away from her work is that wonder is worthwhile. Limón says: "We too are made of wonders, of great and ordinary loves..."