Read 5 Haiku Poems That Will Be Sent to Mars

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By Amanda Wills2013-08-08 22:00:44 UTC

When NASA's MAVEN (Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN) spacecraft launches for Mars in November, it will carry more than 1,100 personal haikus from around the world.

The University of Colorado opened its Going to Mars competition in May, calling on the public to submit poems with three lines; the first and last of those lines had to be five syllables each, and the middle line had to be seven syllables.

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The team received 12,530 entries over two months. Here are the top five winners as determined by public vote:

It’s funny, they named

Mars after the God of War

Have a look at Earth

—Benedict Smith, United Kingdom

Thirty-six million

miles of whispering welcome.

Mars, you called us home.

—Vanna Bonta, United States

Stars in the blue sky

cheerfully observe the Earth

while we long for them

—Luisa Santoro, Italy

distant red planet

the dreams of earth beings flow

we will someday roam

—Greg Pruett, Idaho, United States

Mars, your secret is

unknown for humanity

we want to know you.

—Fanni Redenczki, Hungary

Since the project garnered more responses than expected, the MAVEN team decided to load all poems that received two votes or more — totaling more than 1,100 entries — onto a DVD that will be placed on board the spacecraft.

“The contest resonated with people in ways that I never imagined,” said Stephanie Renfrow, MAVEN Education and Public Outreach leader and the Going to Mars campaign leader in a press statement. “Both new and accomplished poets wrote poetry to reflect their views of Earth and Mars, to share their feelings about space exploration, to pay tribute to loved ones who have passed on and to make us laugh with their words.”

NASA's MAVEN was built in Colorado and transferred to the Kennedy Space Center on Aug. 2 to complete the final phase of its Earth-based journey before heading to Mars in November. It will take MAVEN 10 months to reach the Red Planet. Once there, it will orbit Mars, exploring its upper atmosphere, ionosphere and interactions with the sun and solar wind.

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