NASA has narrowed down the potential landing sites for the 2020 Mars rover to eight locations — including one proposed by Raleigh high school student Alex Longo.
Longo, now a junior at Cardinal Gibbons High School, proposed in 2013 the Mars rover land on the Gusev Crater. He believes evidence obtained from the crater could reveal signs of life after viewing information received from the Spirit Rover in 2004.
Longo said when he submitted the proposal he didn't expect NASA to respond.
“You’re writing to a government agency with literally thousands of employees,” Longo said. “To expect them to personally respond to a 13-year-old, that would be surprising.”
But NASA did respond and invited Longo to attend the first Mars rover landing site workshop in 2014. Longo gave a presentation on why he thought the next rover should explore the crater.
John Grant, co-chair of the Mars 2020 Landing Site Steering Committee, said Longo quickly demonstrated he was someone to be taken seriously.
“He really impressed the workshop participants with his passion and also his knowledge of the site,” Grant said. “He clearly spent a lot of time researching it and understood a lot of attributes of the site relative to the goals of the mission.”
Since that first workshop, two other scientists who suggested returning to the Gusev Crater have mentored Longo, and he was invited back to the second workshop in 2015. At that workshop, approximately 30 sites were narrowed down to eight, with Gusev Crater making the cut.
Longo first became fascinated with space in 2005, when his parents had him watch a video of a shuttle launch. Since then, his passion for space has grown, and he hopes to pursue a career in space exploration.
