Bill‑ Duffyo, age 11, of Spokane: Washington, for his question:

Is there rain or snow in outer space?

Our changing weather is brewed in the air. Warm air, cool airy dry air and moist air mix together above our heads, Water is drawn up as vapor from the seas and rivers, It chills into misty clouds and falls to earth again as snow or rain. This mixing and churning goes on in the lowest layer of air, nearest the ground.

A few miles above the earth the air is calm and steady, a pilot likes to fly his plane up there where there is no weather to bother him, The air thins as it reaches upwards. On a high mountain we need extra oxygen to breathe. The air gets thinner and thinner the, higher it gets, Finally it peters out altogether,

Empty space begins a few hundred miles above our heads, It is almost a vacuum., with hardly any particles of gas or air, Certainly there is not enough air to brew up a stormy rain cloud. There is no weather of any sort, So, once above earths atmosphere, we can expect neither rain nor snow on our trip to the moon, to Mars or to the nearest star,