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NASA engineers installed a time capsule on the Lucy spacecraft late last week for future astro-archaeologists to retrieve and interpret. The Time Capsule is a plaque that includes messages from Nobel Laureates and musicians, among others, as well as a depiction of the configuration of the solar system on October 16, 2021, when the spacecraft is expected to launch.
Like the Pioneer and Voyager probes, Lucy will carry a message to anyone who could possibly intercept the craft. But while previous probes have messages intended for aliens, as they were shot into interstellar space, Lucy will remain in the solar system. Its time capsule will presumably be for future humans to recover, hence the inclusion of words from Nobel Prize winners, poet laureates and musicians, according to a NASA press release detailing the inclusion of the plate. The plate was installed on Lucy in Colorado on July 9, where the craft is undergoing final preparations before its scheduled fall launch.
The plaque features quotes from civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., authors and poets including Orhan Pamuk, Louise Glück, Amanda Gorman, Joy Harjo and Rita Dove, scientists Albert Einstein and Carl Sagan, and musicians including the four Beatles and Queen’s guitarist. and astronomer Brian May. The messages discuss hope, love, heavens, cultural memory and eternity. A full list can be found on Lucy’s website.
Lucy’s mission focuses on Trojan asteroids, a group of space rocks that orbit the Sun beyond the ring of the asteroid belt, taking turns leading Jupiter or chasing the gas giant in its own solar orbit. (Trojan asteroids are those that share an orbit with a planet and are often a byproduct of that planet’s formation, but the term most often applies to those involved with Jupiter.) Jupiter has a phalanx Trojans, but Lucy (named after fossil hominid, itself named after the Beatles song Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds) is only targeting seven of them for flyovers over a 12-year period.
Asteroids are intriguing because they are believed to have formed at the start of the solar system; Just as the Lucy fossil has helped paleoanthropologists understand human evolution, the hope is that the Lucy spacecraft will inform NASA about the evolution of the solar system. And since Lucy is in the sky – beyond, if we are extremely literal – you can imagine that the “diamonds” here are the asteroids, a veritable mine of information.
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Lucy is a product of the Discovery Program, the NASA initiative that produces the DAVINCI + and VERITAS missions to Venus. The Lucy mission will end in 2033, around the same time these spaceships travel to Venus, but Lucy bounce between Trojans and Earth for at least hundreds of thousands of years (NASA has no plans to recover the craft from space).
Perhaps the most fitting passage on the plate is therefore a quote from science journalist Dava Sobel: “We Earth curious sent this robotic spacecraft to explore the tiny, immaculate bodies orbiting the larger planet. of our solar system. We have sought to trace our own origins as far as the evidence permits. Even as we looked back to the ancient past, we thought about the day when you could salvage this relic of our science. “
To future humans who might catch Lucy: Take advantage of your plate. You will probably not be using any language currently spoken on Earth, but I hope you can understand our intention.
More: NASA Sends Probe To Explore Jupiter’s Mysterious Trojan Asteroids
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