A Poem for Europa by U.S. Poet Laureate Ada Limón

U.S. Poet Laureate Ada Limón wrote an original poem dedicated to NASA’s Europa Clipper mission to Jupiter's moon Europa, which is believed to harbor a vast ocean beneath its icy surface.

Narrated by Limón herself, the poem is entitled “In Praise of Mystery: A Poem for Europa” and it connects two water worlds — Earth, yearning to reach out and understand what makes a world habitable, and Europa, waiting with secrets yet to be explored. The poem will be engraved on a plaque carried aboard the Europa Clipper spacecraft.

The commissioned work was released on June 1, 2023, for NASA’s "Message in a Bottle" campaign, which invites people around the world to sign their names to the poem that will journey to another world. Participants’ names will travel 1.8 billion miles, or 2.89 billion kilometers, aboard the Europa Clipper spacecraft on its voyage to Jupiter and its moons.

The mission is set to launch from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in October 2024, and reach orbit around Jupiter by 2030. Over several years, it will conduct multiple flybys of Europa, gathering detailed measurements to determine if the moon has conditions suitable for life.

Credit: Nasa