Rich Bauer, age 7, of East Peoria, Illinois, for his question:

Why don't we feel the earth move?

We know that our big globe spins around like a top every day. Yet it doesn't make us dizzy. We know that every year it swings in a wide orbit around the sun. Yet we don't feel this either. Scientists tell us that the earth also is whizzing along a path through the stars of the Galaxy. Yet even this we do not feel. Let's compare this with a ride in a car. Our speed is a steady 50 miles per hour. We watch the scenery go by    but if our speed remains the same, we do not feel the car moving forward. But we notice it when the car starts up and slows to a stop. This is why we need to buckle our safety belts. However, we don't need safety belts to stay put on the earth because the earth does not speed up or slow down. We don't feel . it move because it moves at the same steady pace.