NASA’s 3 Interstellar Greetings: 3 Occasion’s NASA Sent messages into Space, Voyager’s The golden record, Pioneers 10 & 11 Plaque, and here comes Europa clippers Vault Plate.
When it comes to Inspiration in space NASA is there to lead the position. NASA has an inspirational legacy timely sending messages on their spacecraft. be it voyagers golden record, pioneers plaque, engravings carried aboard by NASA’s Mars rovers.
This legacy goes on with NASA’s most awaited Europa Clipper mission, onboarding Europa clipper vault plate having message to interstellar entities to discover in far future.
Table of Contents
Europa Clippers Vault Plate
Europa clipper mission is set on one common element that connects Earth and moon of gas giant Jupiter (Europa) that is Water. Moon Europa is a icy giant in our solar system, main motto of Europa clipper mission is to study Europa’s icy surface. Scientist believe that there is vast ocean below icy crust of Europa, a place to study possible habitat for life beyond earth.
Water is the Inspiration
Earth and Europa both shares common element that is Water. Water is the theme that clipper team came up with. Water is the connecting bridge of life as we know it, water gives a meaning to a life on earth.
How Europa Clippers Vault Plate looks?
- Shape of the vault plate- Triangular
- Material used in Vault plate- Tantalum Metal
- Size of the Vault Plate- 7″ X 11″(18cm X 28cm)
- Thickness of the Vault plate- 1mm
- Mounting Location- This vault plate is the radiation shield which will protect the clipper’s electronics from Jupiter’s harmful radiation.
What Message Europa Clippers vault plate is carrying?
The Europa Clippers Vault Plate is full of engravings on both sides. Considering Water which is connecting bridge between these two water worlds, the outer facing side plate features “Water Words”- A visual representation of the word water in total 103 different language. This audio recording of word water is engraved on the plate as waveform as you can see in image.
On the other side of the Europa Clippers vault plate, there is a poem originally written by US Poet Laureate Ada Limon. is engraved. Along with the poem over 2.6 million names that are submitted by people around the world to be etched on a fingernail sized silicon chip. this silicon chip is attached and placed within the drawing that resemble the Jovian system an the orbit of its 4 largest moons. The center part of the drawing is a bottle, representing NASA’s Message in a Bottle campaign.
Drake Equation– N = R*fpneflfifcL
In the upper half of vault plate, there is an equation that states the possibility of finding advance and communication civilizations in the our very own galaxy Milky Way.
There is also engraved “Water Hole” Radio Emission Lines a quiet band of the electromagnetic spectrum between 1420 MHz and 1662 MHz .
Pioneers 10 & 11: Golden Plaque
The legacy of sending information about existence of humankind started with Pioneer 10 and 11 missions launched in March 1972 and April 1973 respectively. Bothe the spacecrafts have installed Pioneer Plaque on them. This idea of golden plaque was derived by Carl Sagan who aims to let know any alien civilization out there in interstellar space that who made this spacecraft and how to contact them.
What’s on Pioneer Golden Plaque?
It is a small metal plaque which gives Earths location in the Milky Way Galaxy and an illustration of naked man and women drawn in relation to the spacecraft. It also gives information about time and the place it has been originated. Hope to see any Alien civilization finds this message and try to make contact to us.
Voyager: The Golden Record
Similar to Pioneers 10 and 11, Voyager 1 and 2 carried purposeful message in to the space. Voyagers are such manmade objects that reached interstellar space to the date. Voyagers carry a story of our world on a phonograph record, 12-Inch in size gold-plated disk made of copper.
What’s on The Golden Record?
Golden record contains 115 images that are encoded in analog form. An audio designed to play at 16-2/3 revolutions per minute this audio contains spoken greetings, sounds of earth, around 90 minute selection of music, that include Eastern and Western classics and many of ethnic music.
“The spacecraft will be encountered and the record played only if there are advanced spacefaring civilizations in interstellar space.”
Carl Sagan
- Upper left-hand corner- drawing of phonograph record and stylus.
- Below the drawing- Side view of the record and stylus.
- Upper right-hand corner- shows how pictures to be constructed from the signals pattern.
- Lower left-hand corner- pulsar map same as the pioneer plaques.
- Lower right corner- Drawing of hydrogen atom in its lowest states.
Good Informative blog..