Ray Roberts, age 12, of Houghton ~Lake Heights, Mich., for his question:

What is the zodiac?

Our round globe is surrounded by space on all sides and space is spattered with stars. As the earth rotates and revolves we get first one view then another of the starry heavens. One belt across the sky changes with the seasons. It is called the ecliptic and its plane is on a level with the earths orbit reaching out into the space around us.

The zodiac is a wider belt of sky with the ecliptic at its center. The sun and the planets, except for Venus once in a while, appear in the belt of the zodiac. Twelve constellations also lie in or near the zodiac belt of sky. They parade over the sky with the changing seasons. The word zodiac is coined from an older word for animal. This is because most of the zodiac constellations, and maybe at one time all of them, are named for animals.