Lynn Lafferty, Age 10, Of Fountain Valley, Calif., for her question:

Can we see stars in other galaxies?

Our eyes can see a few of the galaxies beyond the milky way but only as hazy blurs of pale light. North of the equator, when skies are clear and we know just where to look, we can bee a ghostly glimmer in the constellation Andromeda. This extra galactic spiral nebula, is at a distance of about two million light years. The fact that our eyes can bee anything at all at this distance is amazing.

We cannot see the swarming stars of distant galaxies with or without the aid of a telescope. But the telescope can photograph them in detail and give us plates showing many of their individual stars. The pictures also identify different types of stars in other galaxies, such as brilliant novae and supernovae, variable stars and star clusters.