Leonard David's INSIDE OUTER SPACE

Image credit: Library of Congress/Inside Outer Space screengrab

U.S. Poet Laureate Ada Limón has written a new poem that will fly into space aboard NASA’s Europa Clipper mission on a years-long journey to explore Jupiter’s icy moon Europa.

The poem, first shared publicly during a special reading at the Library of Congress, will be engraved on the spacecraft set to launch in October 2024.

This reprocessed colour view of Jupiter’s moon Europa was made from images taken by NASA’s Galileo spacecraft in the late 1990s.

“Writing this poem was one of the greatest honors of my life, but also one of the most difficult tasks I’ve ever been assigned,” Limón said in a Library of Congress statement.

“Eventually, what made the poem come together,” Limón added, “was realizing that in pointing toward other planets, stars and moons, we are also recognizing the enormous gift that is our planet Earth. To point outward is also to point inward.”

To view the reading — “In Praise of Mystery: A Poem for Europa” – go to: https://www.youtube.com/live/D8UC3eQIQMw?feature=share

To sign, read the poem and hear Limón read the poem in an animated video, go to: https://europa.nasa.gov/message-in-a-bottle/sign-on/

Image credit: NASA