Benitez is an eighth grader at St. Therese Academy. Her essay was featured on the online ballot for NASA\u2019s \u201cName the Rover\u201d competition this past month.<\/p>\n The Mars Rover will be launched from the Kennedy Space Center in July. It is the third robot NASA is sending to the planet Mars, but the first machine that is outfitted with a drill for coring samples from Martian rocks and soil.<\/p>\n In their mission overview video<\/a>, NASA scientists noted that the samples will be taken from three spots that may have once hosted life: the floor of an ancient lake, a hot spring, and a site where hot water interacted with rocks in the shallow subsurface.<\/p>\n The rover robot is specifically designed to seek out \u201cbiosignatures,\u201d or indications of ancient life. It will collect and store, or \u2018cache,\u2019 samples from rock. A second mission will be sent in the undetermined future to retrieve the Mars samples and bring them back to NASA\u2019s laboratories on Earth.<\/p>\n \u201cMars 2020 is a pivotal mission in our search for life and could finally answer the age-old question, \u2018Are we alone\u2019?\u201d said Thomas Zurbuchen, NASA associate administrator science mission directorate.<\/p>\n But while the mission has a clear goal and set timeline, it still doesn\u2019t have a name.<\/p>\n Getting \u2018Clarity\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n Fourteen-year-old Benitez shared that she has taken a liking to space since she was young, garnered from her mom\u2019s interests and her dad taking her to the library. But that casual interest soared after a recent visit to NASA\u2019s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.<\/p>\n \u201cMy love and interest grew astronomically after going to the laboratory,\u201d Benitez quipped.<\/p>\n That particular lab is where the car-sized robot was built. During her tour, Benitez saw the Rover in progress in the \u201cclean room.\u201d<\/p>\n One of the tour guides noticed her curiosity and mentioned the contest: NASA was collecting essay entries choosing one-word names for the robot.<\/p>\n \u201cI immediately started creating an essay in my head, going through names,\u201d Benitez said.<\/p>\n She chose \u201cclarity\u201d after learning about the 23 different cameras the rover had, and the fact that it was launching in 2020.<\/p>\n \u201cI figured that the people who designed the cameras would have wanted them, in comparison to a human eye, to have 20\/20, or perfect vision,\u201d Benitez explained, \u201cI used 20\/20 vision as a spinoff of the year 2020.\u201d<\/p>\n In her essay entry, Benitez noted that \u201cClarity, when defined, means the quality of being easy to see or view, as with an image or vision. The Mars 2020 Rover, given its twenty-three cameras; nine for engineering, seven for scientific purposes, and seven for entry, landing, and descent, will help the people working on Earth get an amazingly clear view of Mars \u2026 we will be able to visualize Mars with complete Clarity<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n Her description was one of more than 28,000 essay submissions from K-12 students nationwide. Thousands of volunteer judges whittled the pool down to 155 semifinalists, and then again to nine choices. Aside from Clarity, the other finalists were Endurance, Promise, Tenacity, Perseverance, Vision, Courage, Ingenuity, and Fortitude.<\/p>\n \u201cI was so excited and shocked,\u201d Benitez recalled when she learned hers made the Top 9. \u201cI was jumping up and down! I didn\u2019t think I would make it this far in the contest, but I am really grateful for this amazing opportunity.\u201d<\/p>\n Each name and essay was posted online, where anyone could read and vote on the winner.<\/p>\n 772,237 votes were cast from all over the world \u2014 you can see a breakdown online of exactly how many votes came from each country in NASA\u2019s public poll participation map<\/a>. The number of votes per country ranged from one person to 24,664 votes, with the latter number being from Turkey. The United States itself provided more than 500,000 votes.<\/p>\n What\u2019s next<\/strong><\/p>\n Now, all Benitez can do is wait. NASA\u2019s site explained it would \u201ctake into consideration\u201d the poll results and will announce the essay winner in early March.<\/p>\n The winning essay will be published permanently on NASA\u2019s website, and the winning student will be invited to see the spacecraft launch in July from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida.<\/p>\n Either way, Benitez still has her sights set on working for those engineers one day.<\/p>\n \u201cI would definitely love to work at NASA as an aerospace engineer or an astronomer,\u201d Benitez declared. \u201cI love learning about space, the galaxies, and the solar system, so working at NASA is my dream job!\u201d<\/p>\n Even though the poll is closed, all nine essays are still available for perusal at go.nasa.gov\/37dgUBS. There are also links to a Mars Rover timeline, facts, and where the robot is now.<\/p>\n \u2014 Se puede contactar a la escritora independiente Joyell Nevins en joyellc@gmail.com<\/a>. Tambi\u00e9n puedes seguir su blog Small World, Big God en swbgblog.wordpress.com<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By JOYELL NEVINS |\u00a0Mission Times Courier More than 28,000 entries. 155 semifinalists. Nine finalists chosen in the National Aeronautics and Space Administration\u2019s (NASA) international contest \u2013 and San Carlos\u2019s Nora Benitez is one of those finalists. Benitez is an eighth grader at St. Therese Academy. Her essay was featured on the online ballot for NASA\u2019s […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":826,"featured_media":231779,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"11558","_seopress_titles_title":"San Carlos student hopes to bring \u2018Clarity\u2019 to Mars","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[11547,11558,11551,11550],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-231778","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-features","category-mission-times-courier","category-news","category-top-stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/231778","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/826"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=231778"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/231778\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/231779"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=231778"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=231778"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=231778"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"San](\"https:\/\/missiontimescourier.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/thumbnail_IMG_1289-copy.jpg\")
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