"NASA's Cryptic Message to Europa: A New 'Golden Record' for Alien Life"

NASA will send a commemorative plate with a microchip containing over 2.6 million names to Jupiter's moon Europa aboard the Europa Clipper spacecraft in October 2024. The mission aims to explore Europa's potential to support life beneath its frozen surface. The plate, featuring a poem by U.S. Poet Laureate Ada Limón, symbolizes Earth's connection to Europa and includes waveforms of the word "water" in 103 languages and references to interstellar communication. The spacecraft is expected to orbit Jupiter in 2030 and conduct close flybys of Europa to gather data on its ocean, icy crust, and space environment, with hopes of shedding light on the moon's potential for harboring extraterrestrial life.