n 2024, if all goes to plan, a spacecraft named the Europa Clipper will embark on a journey to an icy, gray moon of Jupiter covered in rust-colored gashes. It will swim along the Jovian satellite's gravitational tides, half facing the orb from orbit, half exposed to the airless ocean of space. And alongside its high-tech spectrometer, radar system, optical imager and other instruments built to search for proof of alien habitats, the Europa Clipper will be bringing my name. It can bring yours, too.
You just have to sign up for NASA's free "Message in a Bottle program" here. The campaign closes at 11:59 p.m. EST on Dec. 31 (0459 GMT on Jan. 1); at the time I'm writing this, almost 900,000 names have been entered.
If you're unsure why this matters, however, you're not alone. Right after signing my name, and honestly before I even knew what that would entail, I thought pretty deeply about why I want this to happen. After all, the spacecraft won't be landing anywhere. There's no one on Europa to receive our message. Each name is one among hundreds of thousands of others. Even our names are simply intangible concepts created to denote our existence, an idea that linguists and philosophers have plunged into for years. Without us, what are our names? Without anyone to read them, where have they truly gone?
https://www.space.com/nasa-clipper-moon-jupiter-europa-human-names-microchip
