A
tantalum plate attached to the
Europa Clipper spacecraft, scheduled to launch today, which is decorated with
waveforms that are visual representations of the sound formed by the word "
water" in 103 languages. At center is a symbol representing the
American Sign Language sign for "water." The Europa Clipper will study
Europa, a
moon of Jupiter, taking six years to make a 2.9 billion km (1.9-billion mile) journey from Earth. It is expected to reach orbit around Europa in 2030. Among its tasks will be to search for liquid water on and inside Europa.Ryan Lannom (
Jet Propulsion Lab)