NASA spaceship sets off with earthly poetry

NASA’s vast interplanetary spacecraft Europa Clipper set off for Jupiter’s second moon this month carrying a small piece of earthly poetry. Ada Limón, the current US poet laureate, was asked to write a poem to be engraved inside the basketball court-sized craft — preferably with water imagery, a nod to the mission’s purpose of investigating whether the ice-encrusted moon Europa could sustain life.

In Praise of Mystery represents a message from humankind to whatever the craft finds on its five-year, 1.8-billion mile journey. It also symbolizes how art can be a medium for discovery, Limón told The New York Times: “Poetry is the language of mystery and the unknown.”