Dianna Giampietri, age 12, of Spokane, Washington, for her question

Is it really dangerous to look at an eclipse?

It's safe enough to look at a lunar eclipse. You can stare right at the face of the full moon and watch as the Earth's shadow creeps across it, turning its golden light to dusky copper. The light from the surface of the Moon is too weak to damage human eyes, even at its brightest. During a lunar eclipse, the Earth's shadow makes the lunar light even dimmer.

A solar eclipse is something else again. It occurs when the Moon passes directly between us and the Sun, blotting out its dazzling disk inch by inch. It is unsafe to watch this event with the naked eyes, because even a small sliver of the Sun's brilliance can damage human vision and may cause permanent blindness. The Sun is an enormous nuclear powerhouse, and human eyes are not constructed to withstand a direct look at its seething radiance. It is not wise to look directly at the Sun even on cloudy days, and watching, a solar eclipse is asking for disaster.