According to NASA, a song by Missy Elliot was sent to Venus

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(NewsNation) — NASA announced Monday that it recently transmitted the lyrics of the song “The Rain (Supa Dupa Fly)” by Missy Elliot from the Deep Space Network’s (DSN) Goldstone complex to Venus, a distance of about 158 ​​million miles (254 million kilometers).

The agency’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California sent the transmission on July 12 at 10:05 a.m. Pacific Time.

According to the space agency, this is the first time a hip-hop song has found its way into space.

“As the largest and most sensitive telecommunications service of NASA’s Space Communications and Navigation (SCaN) program, the DSN features an array of giant radio antennas that enable missions to track, send commands, and receive scientific data from spacecraft heading to the Moon and beyond,” NASA said. “To date, the system has only transmitted one other song into space, making the transmission of Elliott’s song a first for hip-hop and NASA.”

The first song performed in space was the Ukrainian folk song “Watching the Sky and Thinking a Thought” by cosmonaut Pavlo Popovych on August 12, 1962.

However, “Jingle Bells” was the first song played in space using musical instruments on December 16, 1965. Astronauts Wally Schirra and Thomas Stafford played the song on a harmonica and bells during NASA’s Gemini 6A space flight.