For some reason, NASA transmitted a Missy Elliott song to Venus

Missy Elliott has officially gone interplanetary.

This week, NASA conducted an experiment to see if they could transmit a single from Earth to Venus and back again using some radio antennas they use for keeping tabs on spacecraft. Any kind of radio message would have worked fine, but someone decided that “The Rain” by Missy Elliott would be most appropriate. No one has said why.

At the speed of light, the signal took almost 14 minutes to travel to Venus and back.

Music is often used to probe the heavens. There’s the Golden Record aboard the two Voyager spacecraft. And back in 2008, NASA blasted The Beatles’ “Across the Universe” towards Polaris, the North Star. It’ll arrive in about 310 years.