NASA beams Missy Elliott song to Venus

Missy Elliott lyrics blasted off into space as NASA transmitted her song "The Rain (Supa Dupa Fly)" 158 million miles from Earth to Venus, the space agency said Monday. 

It took nearly 14 minutes for the hip-hop track to reach its destination. The Missy Elliott song is the second song ever transmitted into deep space, following up on the Beatles' "Across the Universe" in 2008. 

"My song 'The Rain' has officially been transmitted all the way to Venus, the planet that symbolizes strength, beauty and empowerment," Missy Elliott said in a social media post. "The sky is not the limit, it's just the beginning."

There actually is rain on Venus, though because temperatures reach 860 degrees Fahrenheit, the drops, which fall from clouds made of sulfuric acid, evaporate "back into a never ending toxic cloud," according to NASA. 

Rolling Stone ranked "The Rain" one of its "500 Greatest Songs of All Time" in 2021. The 1997 song debuted at No. 3 on the Billboard 200 with 129,000 copies sold in the first week of release.

The singer is in the middle of her "Out of This World" tour. Venus is her favorite planet, according to NASA. 

"Both space exploration and Missy Elliott's art have been about pushing boundaries," said Brittany Brown, director of the Digital and Technology Division of NASA's Office of Communications. "Missy has a track record of infusing space-centric storytelling and futuristic visuals in her music videos, so the opportunity to collaborate on something out of this world is truly fitting."

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California sent transmission into space at 10:05 a.m. PDT on Friday, according to NASA. They used the space agency's Deep Space Network, which has an array of giant radio antennas, to beam the song toward Venus. The song was transmitted at the speed of light.

While the Beatles and Missy Elliott songs are the only ones that have been transmitted into deep space, music has been launched into outer space before. "The Sounds of Earth," also known as the "Golden Record," was sent into space on Voyager 1 and 2 spacecraft in 1977 as part of a message "intended to communicate a story of our world to extraterrestrials," according to NASA. The phonograph record was a 12-inch gold-plated copper disk with music from Bach, Chuck Berry, Mozart, Beethoven and more.

In:
• Venus
• NASA

Aliza Chasan

Aliza Chasan is a Digital Content Producer for "60 Minutes" and CBSNews.com. She has previously written for outlets including PIX11 News, The New York Daily News, Inside Edition and DNAinfo. Aliza covers trending news, often focusing on crime and politics.

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