Stephen James Rocker, age 10,

Can you see the North Star from the South Pole?

Polaris, the North Star, hangs almost exactly over the North Pole, when you stand at the North Pole, it is directly overhead at the top of the sky. The further away you ,get from the North Pole, the lower Polaris appears in the sky. At Portland, Maine, it is about half way down the northern sky. Seen from Houston, Texas, Polaris is about two thirds of the way down from the top of the sky. Further south, at the equator, the North Star is seen just peeping over the horizon. Down in South America, south of the equator, the North Star is hidden below the horizon. From the South Pole, the North Star cannot be seen at all.

This is because of the earth's shapes Our world is a great round ball surrounded by space on all sides. We see the vast reaches of space every time we look up at  the sky. The earth turns around once every 24 hours.

So we get a chance  to see different views of the sky. But while you are looking out at one  view of space, the people on the other side of the earth are looking out at a different view.

Scattered through space are the heavenly bodies, the moon, the sun and countless other suns which the call the stars. Lach stretch of space has its own stars arranged in their own special patterns. The North Pole faces Polaris, the Big Dipper and the Little Dipper. The South Pole looks out towards the group of stars called the Southern Cross. The North Pole and the South Pole look out at opposite views of the heavens. tale cannot see the Southern Cross from the North Pole and we cannot see Polaris from the South Pole.

The face of the earth is marked with lines of latitude. Latitude 0 degrees is the equator, the line which runs around the waist of the world halfway between the two poles. The lines of latitude are parallel with the equator and the; are about 69 miles apart. The North Pole is 90 degrees north of the equator and the South Pole is  90 degrees south of the equator. There are 180 degrees of latitude on earth and there are 180 degrees in the half circle over the sky from horizon to horizon.

At the North Pole, Polaris is 0 degrees above the horizon, which is directly overhead. Latitude 45 degrees runs through the state of Maine, Here Polaris is at 45 degrees above the horizon. Houston, Texas, is just south of latitude 30 degrees north of the equator. Seen from Houston, Polaris is a little more than 30 degrees above the horizon in the northern sky. South of Houston, way out over the beautiful Gulf of Mexico, the North Star is still lower in the sky. If Polaris is 20 degrees above the horizon, then the observer is somewhere on Latitude 20 degrees north of the equator.

In Australia and South America, there is no Polara.s to point out the north direction or to tell the traveler what latitude he is near. There are, however, other reliable stars. For the Southern Hemisphere is facing a different view of the heavens.