Steve Hatcher, age 12, of Greenacres, Washington, for his question;

How many stars can we see with the naked eve?

On a clear night, over the smog free desert, the entire sky seems to be populated with millions of stars    almost cheek to cheek. True, there are billions of stars, but you could not count that many by viewing them with the naked eye. Astronomers estimate that we can see only about 2,000 visible stars on a clear night. This includes all the bright sparklers and the dimmer ones down to about the sixth magnitude. And the count would cover the whole sky, section by section from horizon to horizon. Naturally, by the time you had finished the tedious counting job, many will set in the west while new ones rise in the east.

From our side of the globe, naturally, we see only half the sky at a time. Different constellations appear during the four seasons of the year. During any one season, our eyes can see about 2,000 stars    but different ones arrive with the next season. Astronomers estimate that through a whole year about 6,000 visible stars appear in our skies.