David Wines, age 10, of North Brunswick, New Jersey, for his question:

Where do the stars go in the daytime?

When the sun comes up, all the bright stars grow pale and finally fade away. They seem to disappear right out of the sky. But where do they go? Certainly those at the top of the sky do not have time to sink down and set in the west. The truth is that they don’t go anywhere. The stars are right there in the sky all through the day. We just cannot see them because the razzle dazzle sun is so bright that their small sparks are lost in its brilliant light.

When you light a candle in a dark room, its flame seems very bright. But if you then turn on a very bright lamp, the light of the candle seems too pale to notice. On a grand scale, this is what happens when the brilliant sun rises and hides the stars. However, all through the day the stars are really up there, rising and setting in the sky.