NASA beams Missy Elliot’s Hip Hong song to Venus at the speed of light

American superstar Missy Elliot has a new achievement to show: she recently became the first hip-hop artist to have her song sent to a planet. Venus is her favorite planet, and so the American space agency NASA gave her debut solo single, after more than 30 years in the music industry, a one-way ticket to Earth’s neighboring planet.

NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory beamed the lyrics of its hit song “The Rain (Supa Dupa Fly)” 158 million miles into space to Earth’s “evil twin.” It did so via the 120-foot-wide dish antenna on Deep Space Station 13 (DSS-13), located in the Deep Space Network (DSN) Goldstone Deep Space Communications Complex in California. The DSN is equipped with a multitude of giant radio antennas that allow missions to monitor, communicate with, and receive data from spacecraft.

Notably, this is the first time hip-hop has been transmitted into orbit. The system has only sent one other song into space before, The Beatles’ “Across the Universe,” which was sent to the North Star in 2008.

She took to social media and wrote: “My song ‘The Rain’ has officially been broadcast to Venus, the planet that symbolizes strength, beauty and empowerment. The sky is not the limit, it is just the beginning.”

NASA said in a statement: “Both space exploration and Missy Elliott’s art are about pushing boundaries. Missy has experience infusing her music videos with space-centric storytelling and futuristic imagery, so the opportunity to work on something out of the ordinary is a great fit for her.”

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