Janie Carion, age 11, of Peoria, Ill., for her question:

Does the sun have a shadow?

The Earth has a long tapering shadow which points some 900,000 miles out into Space. The sun, of course, is shining on the opposite side of the Earth from the shadow, and the shadow occurs because the dark and solid Earth shuts off some of the sunlight. The moon also casts a shadow out into space. But the sun has no shadow. The star we call our sun is a whopping ball of blazing gases. Dazzling light shines out from every square inch of its surface, and its radiant energy pours forth in every direction. If the sun were near a much brighter star, it would cast a shadow. But it is alone in space, and our dazzling bonfire has no shadow of its own.