According to foreign media reports, NASA's first mission to the Jupiter-related Trojan asteroid will carry words of wisdom to inspire humanity in the distant future. The Lucy spacecraft, which is scheduled to launch in October, was recently fitted with a sign that will serve as a time capsule. While "Lucy" is named after a fossilized skeleton of a human ancestor, the name is also inspired by the Beatles' 1967 hairstyle classic song "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds."
It is understood that the plaque of the spacecraft is engraved with the famous words of band members John Lennon, Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr and George Harrison.
Here are the words it will carry:
"Ultimately, the love you get is equal to the love you create." - Paul McCartney
"We're all shining... It's like the moon, the stars and the sun. - John Lennon
"Peace and love." - Ringo Starr
"When your eyes look beyond yourself, then you may find that peace of mind is waiting there." - George Harrison
In addition to the Beatles members, the plaque contains quotes from Albert Einstein, poet Joe Hacho, writer Kazuo Ishiguro, Martin Luther King Jr., Brian May of Queen, Yoko Ono, Carl Sagan, and others.
Amanda Gorman, who is known for her poetry at President Joe Biden's inauguration, also contributed a poem to the plaque.
The Lucy adventure will take it to a series of asteroids, all of which move in jupiter's path. NASA said the asteroids were "thought to be remnants of the original material that formed the exoplanets." The spacecraft will study these days so that we humans can learn more about the history of our solar system and the origin of the planets.
In addition, NASA is also considering future plaques so that our descendants may find that Lucy is still in space many millennia later.
"After Lucy completed a single mission to visit a record number of asteroids in 2033 (eight asteroids in six separate orbits around the Sun), the Lucy spacecraft will continue to travel between the Trojan asteroid and Earth's orbit for at least hundreds of thousands, if not millions of years," the agency said in a statement Monday.