Linda Rae Jones. age 11. of Spokane Washington;

Does the north or south pole point up?

If you stand on the north pole. the sky is up above you. The ground is down below your feet. If you stand on the south pole the sky is up above you. the ground down under your feet. This is true no matter where you stand on the earth. For the earth is a great ball surrounded by space. To us. up is away from the ground and towards space. The same is true of the Solar System. The sun and its family are surrounded by the vast reaches of space in all directions. The planets all travel around in the same direction more or less on a level with the sun's equator.

Let’s say that the earth and planets are moving forward along their orbits' path. Then we might say that each has a top and a bottom end. For we might say that a planet. like everyone else. travels forward with its bottom end down and its top end up.

If all this is true. then we might say that the earth's north pole points upwards. or nearly upwards. and the south pole points down. or nearly down. Actually the earth is tipped as it goes along. So its poles could only slope upwards and downwards. In any case we can only guess about the right way up of the earth. For all we know a planet may travel backwards and walk on its heads