Curiosity of a girl lands on Mars_美文_趣味英语-查字典英语网

Curiosity of a girl lands on Mars

Her father was surprised at the invitation, saying it was an especially rare chance for Chinese Americans, the article said.

Clara, a sixth-grader at the time, suggested Curiosity because, as she wrote in the beginning of the essay, "it is an everlasting flame that burns in everyone's mind. It makes me get out of bed in the morning and wonder what surprises life will throw at me that day".

Her essay was one of nine finalists out of more than 9,000 submitted.

"It (curiosity) was the first thing that popped into my mind, and I really liked it, because I was just really curious as a child and I asked so many questions. And I thought it'd be a really good fit for a rover that was going to Mars," Clara told Washington-based National Public Radio.

Ma's interest in space seemed mainly to stem from her grandmother. "My grandma, when she came from China to visit us in the US, would just point out all of these constellations to me, you know, the Big Dipper, the Little Dipper. And the stars are like the only constant things in the sky. They're the same in China and in the US, and I just thought it was really, really cool," she said.

"If you can use science to bring people together to discover new things and to learn new things and to advance humanity as a whole, that's always an amazing thing to do, and I think it's totally worthwhile to be going to Mars."

About the broadcaster:

Rosie Tuck is a copy editor at the China Daily website. She was born in New Zealand and graduated from Auckland University of Technology with a Bachelor of Communications studies majoring in journalism and television. In New Zealand she was working as a junior reporter for the New Zealand state broadcaster TVNZ. She is in Beijing on an Asia New Zealand Foundation grant, working as a journalist in the English news department at the China Daily website.