Virginia Student's Name Selected (UPDATED)

"NASA's next Mars rover has a new name – Perseverance.
The name was announced Thursday by Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator of the Science Mission Directorate, during a celebration at Lake Braddock Secondary School in Burke, Virginia. Zurbuchen was at the school to congratulate seventh grader Alexander Mather, who submitted the winning entry to the agency’s "Name the Rover" essay contest, which received 28,000 entries from K-12 students from every U.S. state and territory."

Alabama had a finalist in the naming contest, and we congratulate Vaneeza Rupani!

UPDATE: Alabama played a part in the winning entry too, as reported in this morning's N.Y. Times:

During a NASA event announcing the name, Alex recalled a trip to Space Camp in Huntsville, Ala., and seeing a giant model of a Saturn 5 rocket that is there. “Eleven-year-old me saw that and lost his mind,” he said. “I immediately knew that space is something I was doing for the rest of my life.”