A view of Jupiter’s moon Europa
| Photo Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS and Kevin M. Gill
NASA is inviting individuals to send their names to Jupiter’s moon by way of its Europa Clipper spacecraft that’s scheduled to launch subsequent 12 months and orbit the Europa moon by 2030.
Astronomy lovers can send their names into area or submit a beloved one’s name. An American poem shall be engraved on the spacecraft, whereas individuals’s names shall be stencilled onto microchips which are mounted on the craft, in accordance to NASA.
“Scientists are almost certain that beneath Europa’s ever-changing icy crust lies a vast saltwater ocean that holds almost twice as much water as Earth’s oceans. With a thin oxygen atmosphere and abundant water, Europa is considered one of the best places in our solar system to search for life,” posted NASA on Instagram on Christmas, suggesting that sending in names may function a final minute reward.
People can submit names by way of a type on the NASA web site. Applications will shut on December 31.
2,204,120 names have been added to the listing since June this 12 months, with over 350,000 of them coming from India.
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The Europa Clipper spacecraft will journey 2.9 billion km to examine Jupiter’s moon and study extra about its oceanic buildings, to see if it will possibly at some point maintain life.
Europa was named after the mom of King Minos in Greek mythology, and was found by Simon Marius and Galileo Galilei within the seventeenth century.
