Amy Hanyan, age 8, of St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada, for her question:

'That would happen if the sun blew up?

Earthquakes, floods and tornados are called disasters. And such dreadful disasters are bound to happen now and then. When we hear about them on the news, we feel sorry for the people who were hurt or lost their homes. Sometimes we want to send them food and other useful things, which is a grand idea. When a disaster happens to us, we try very hard to be brave and sensible. The best way to get through the bad time is to help somebody else, if we can.

The earth has had disasters of this sort since the world began. But always the sun was there and when the worst was over, it showed its shining face. What's more, we can depend on it to stay the same for millions and billions of years. If it blew up, there would be a major disaster. But nobody worries about this, nobody wonders what would happen. Because every sensible person knows that our faithful sun is not going to blow itself up for millions or even billions of years.