Andra Bennett, age 12, of Richwood, W. Va., for her question:

WHEN DID ASTRONOMY BEGIN?

Astronomy is the study of the sky, including everything out there in the vast oceans of space. Like all sciences, it really began when people got curious about a subject and set about finding the answers to their questions. In this case we might say that astronomy really began when our cave man ancestors looked up and gazed in wonder at the stupendous heavens.

More than 6,000 years ago there were early astronomers in Mesopotamia, Egypt and perhaps several other early civilizations. They kept records of the heavenly bodies moving over the sky and charted the paths of the stars to predict the seasons. Most likely astronomy is the oldest of the sciences, and all early civilizations had their astronomers.