The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) offers an annual essay writing contest called Scientist for a Day.
This year’s writing prompt asked students to choose among three moons and argue which one NASA should explore.
The three choices were Saturn’s moon Titan, Jupiter’s moon Europa, and Saturn’s moon Enceladus.
Four students at South, Elizabeth Barstein, Susan George, Dana Jung, and Namitha Sethuraman, won the Scientist for a Day essay contest.
Their essay was one of three picked for the grades 9-12 category from entries around country.
National level winners participated in a video conference on Tuesday, May 7 with three NASA scientists at the California Jet Propulsion Labs. South students were encouraged to join the video conference.
The scientists worked on such headline projects like the Voyager mission and the future Mars landing project.
Contest winner senior Susan George said, “It was really cool being able to listen to scientists who have worked on some of the most groundbreaking projects of our time.”
The video conversation ranged from the first image of a black hole to the effects of climate change on the planet.

For more information about the Scientist for a Day contest visit solarsystem.nasa.gov.