The scientists of the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) for its acronym in English, prepare the last details for the mission europe clipper. This is a space probe that will travel to Jupiter to focus on one of its best-known moons, the namesake of the old continent of Earth.
One of the colorful details that this mission will have is that it will carry a microchip in which anyone can write their name to “travel” into outer space. Each identification will be accompanied by a poem written by the renowned literary, Ada Lemon.
The Europa Clipper mission will take off in 2024. Specifically, the trip will cover more than 2,800 million kilometers. It is estimated that it will arrive at Europa, Jupiter’s moon, in 2030.
Europa is a fascinating celestial body due to the presence of a subsurface ocean of liquid water, which is believed to be one of the fundamental ingredients for life as we know it.
Due to gravitational forces exerted by Jupiter and other moons, Europa experiences internal heating that keeps its liquid ocean below its icy crust.
NASA’s Europa Clipper mission aims to study this fascinating moon in detail. The mission is expected to provide valuable information on the composition of the surface, the subsurface ocean, and possible conditions for life on Europa.
The poem by Ada Limón, who will travel to Jupiter
In it official mission site (link) there is the poem and the possibility of writing down your name to travel to space. The literary works of Ada Limón say the following:
“Arching beneath the night sky tinged with expansive blackness, we point to the planets we know, fix quick wishes on the stars. From earth, we read the sky as if it were an infallible book of the universe, expert and evident.
Still, there are mysteries beneath our sky: the song of the whale, the songbird singing its call on a wind-shaken tree branch.
We are creatures of constant wonder, curious about beauty, about leaves and flowers, about pain and pleasure, about sun and shadow.
And it is not the darkness that unites us, it is not the cold remoteness of space, but the offering of water, each drop of rain, each stream, each pulse, each vein. Oh second moon, we too are made of water, of vast and tempting seas.
We too are made of wonders, of great and ordinary loves, of small invisible worlds, of a need to call through the darkness.