Lesley Katharine Davie, aged 13, of Loudinville, N.Y. for her question:

Is it possible to see the earth from Sirius?

This is a question full of supposes, Suppose our experts took their beat telescopes to Sirius ‑ which is about 50 trillion miles away. Could they land there? No. For Sirius is a star bigger and hotter than our sun.

Suppose they landed on a planet near by Sirius. First we must suppose that there is such a planet. So far our telescopes have discovered no planets around Sirius. In feet they have spotted no planets outside our Solar System in the whole starry heavens.

But, let's suppose the experts landed on a planet near Sirius. Let's suppose the telescopes there can show as much as they can from the earth. They would give a splendid view of the sun. It would show up as a medium sized, orange‑colored star.

But these telescopes would not b e strong enough to pick up the planets of our Solar System. Imagine the Solar System on a smaller scale. The sun might be compared to a lighted electric bulb. On this scale the earth and planets would be varying sized dark peas and beans. So it is not likely that even our most powerful telescopes could give a view of our earth from nearby Sirius or any other star.