ESA scientist answers Charlotte, aged 5

Dr Janine Pforr, scientist at the European Space Agency (ESA), writes to winner of 2016's Native Scientist Best Sentence Award.

Every year Native Scientist organizes a "What is a scientist/If I were a scientist" Competition. Last year's winner for the Best Sentence Category was 5-year old Charlotte von Scheven, from Edinburgh. Charlotte, who is bilingual for German and English, is an aspiring firefighter and emergency doctor. She wrote "If I were a scientist, I would try to find out why the stars are "round" and don't have the shape of a "star"."

When hearing about the award and reading the sentence, German scientist Dr Janine Pforr, from ESA, wrote a letter to Charlotte congratulating her on her achievement and curiosity. She says "You can be very proud of yourself; the award you got is really a great achievement! I really like your sentence because it reflects your thirst for knowledge and at the same time it refers to a fundamental law of physics."

To know more about the scientist, please go here.

If you are as curious as Charlotte and wonder why that is, you can follow this link for an explanation.