NASA Europa Clipper’s Vault Plate
There's a legacy of NASA spacecraft carrying inspirational messages from Earth, from the Pioneer Plaque and the Voyager Golden Record, to engravings carried aboard NASA's Mars rovers. Now, as NASA sends a new mission from one ocean world to another, the Europa Clipper spacecraft continues this tradition, inspiring global interest and connection through its journey.
Water connects our planet Earth with Jupiter's moon Europa. The Europa Clipper mission aims to confirm that a vast ocean exists beneath Europa's icy surface, making it a promising place to study habitability for life beyond Earth. This shared element of water inspired the Europa Clipper team to engrave designs that celebrate human connections and our collective spirit of exploration on a triangular metal plate. The plate, made of tantalum metal about 1 millimeter thick and about 7 by 11 inches (18 by 18 centimeters), is part of the structure that will protect Europa Clipper’s electronics from Jupiter’s harmful radiation.
Water connects all life as we know it, and all human cultures. The outward-facing side of the vault plate features "Water Words" — a visual representation of the word for water in 103 spoken languages, extending from a central symbol that represents the sign for water in American Sign Language. Professional linguists helped to collect a diverse and inclusive sampling of human language families from across the globe. Audio recordings of these words are engraved on the vault plate as waveforms – visual representations of each sound. The circular symbol representing the sign for water in American Sign Language was created using a technique in image processing and data compression, called a Fourier transform.