Editing Mars Pathfinder (section)

==Naming the rover==
[[File:Pathfinder01.jpg|thumb|300px|''Sojourner'' takes its Alpha Particle X-ray Spectrometer measurement of the [[Yogi Rock]]]]
The name ''Sojourner'' was chosen for the ''Mars Pathfinder'' rover when 12-year old Valerie Ambroise, of Bridgeport, Connecticut, won a year-long, worldwide competition in which students up to 18 years old were invited to select a heroine and submit an essay about her historical accomplishments. The students were asked to address in their essays how a planetary rover named for their heroine would translate these accomplishments to the Martian environment.

Initiated in March 1994 by [[The Planetary Society]] of Pasadena, California, in cooperation with NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), the contest got under way with an announcement in the January 1995 issue of the National Science Teachers Association's magazine ''Science and Children'', circulated to 20,000 teachers and schools across the nation.<ref>{{cite web|title=NASA Names First Rover to Explore the Surface of Mars|url=http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/MPF/rover/name.html|publisher=NASA|access-date=November 29, 2010|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110607010535/http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/MPF/rover/name.html|archive-date=June 7, 2011|url-status=live}}</ref>

Ambroise's winning essay, which suggested naming the rover for the 19th century women's rights activist [[Sojourner Truth]], was selected from among 3,500 essays. First runner-up was Deepti Rohatgi, 18, of Rockville, Maryland, who suggested scientist [[Marie Curie]]. Second runner-up was Adam Sheedy, 15, of Round Rock, Texas, who submitted the name of the late astronaut [[Judith Resnik]], who perished in the 1986 [[Space Shuttle Challenger|Space Shuttle ''Challenger'']] explosion. Other popular suggestions included explorer and guide [[Sacajewea]] and aviator [[Amelia Earhart]].<ref>{{cite web |url=http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/MPF/rover/name.html |title=Pathfinder Rover Gets Its Name |work=NASA |access-date=June 10, 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150527055515/http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/MPF/rover/name.html |archive-date=May 27, 2015 |url-status=live }}</ref>