Wayne May, age 13, of Atlanta, Georgia, for the question:

Is there a South Star?

At the north pole, Polaris the North Star is directly overhead. The further we get from the north pole, the lower it hangs in the sky. Atlanta, Georgia is a little south of Latitude 34 degrees north of the equator. Here, Polaris is a little lower than 34 degrees above the horizon. High or low in the sky, Polaris is always due north and travelers north of the equator have used it as a guide star for countless ages,

Magellan, the first mariner to girdle the globe, studied the stars south of the equator. He found no South Star to correspond with our helpful North Star. In fact, there are no stars at all directly over the south pole. There are, however, a group of southern constellations which circle regions in the sky, just as our Big Dipper circles Polaris. One of them is the vivid Southern Cross with two stars which act as pointers to the due south direction.