Jimmie Roach, age 12, of Marsing, Idaho, for his question:

What are sun dogs?

Once in a great while we see two baby suns, one on either side of big Father Sol. Has our glorious sun produced a pair of puppies? Not at all. Even though we call them sun dogs they are not starry offspring of the sun.

They are, in fact, some 93 million miles away from the sun, up there in the earth's atmosphere. The air tends to play tricks on sunlight, bending it, twisting it and reflecting it. These tricks are most noticeable when fine ice crystals are present in the higher air.

The halo around the moon and the fuzzy halo around the sun are caused by tricks of sunlight and air. And so are the sun dogs.