NASA is sending people's names to a moon of Jupiter called Europa. A spacecraft will head to Europa in October 2024. The 2.6-billion-kilometre trip will take six years. Sending the names is part of a time-capsule project. A poem will also be on the space ship. NASA said:"The poem connects the two water worlds - Earth, yearning to reach out and understand what makes a world habitable, and Europa, waiting with secrets yet to be explored."
NASA currently has 700,000 names. Engineers will use an electron beam to write them on a microchip. Each line of text is less than 1/1000th of the width of a human hair. NASA said:"The poem and names will be like a message in a bottle." The spacecraft will gather data on Europa's atmosphere, icy crust and ocean. NASA said:"Europa is such a promising place to better understand the astro-biological potential for habitable worlds beyond Earth."