Charlene Carpenter, age 9, of Winston‑ Salem, N.C., for her question:

ARE THERE PEOPLE ON OTHER PLANETS?

It would be nice to think that there are people living on other planets. But at present, nobody is sure whether there are living things of any kind, even on the other planets of our solar system. We hope to have an answer next year, when our Bicentennial space probe reaches the planet Mars. We do not expect to find people there, or on any other of the sun's planets. But there may be living things of some kind‑‑perhaps like the simple plants on the earth.

Our starry sun has a family of nine planets, but people live only on the planet earth. However, there are billions and billions of other stars‑‑and maybe many of them also have planets. Possibly a few of them have people somewhat like ourselves. In any case, they would be trillions of miles away, and we would need a spaceship to pay them a visit.