Hello everyone,

Today there was an interesting picture in the newspaper of the next Mars rover getting ready to go. Check out this big box:

So what is inside the box? It looks like this:

Very cool. The last two rovers lasted much much longer than anyone imagined. Opportunity landed in 2004, and sent its last transmission in 2018. It traveled 45km in that time! The next rover, Curiosity landed in 2012, and is still going strong today. These little robots were designed to work for two years, but have showed a lot of spirit.

Now, the only thing left to do it find a new name for this next rover. Right now there is a contest on the NASA homepage with some different ideas and essays about them. They essays were written by young people in America, so check out the page and read some of the reasons why!

Which name would you choose?