Panel #1 (Title)
• This is Outer Space Pals #11. In this episode, we'll start to learn about shadows.

Panel #2
• If you remember from our last episode, Noah asked what the dark spot on Jules was. Here, Tara gives him the answer: It's a shadow.

Panel #3
• In this panel, we discover that the dark spot is the shadow of one of Jules' moons.

Panel #4
• If there's a shadow, there must be something giving off light making the shadow. The brightest object in the space around us is the Sun, so it's usually the object making shadows. Usually, but not always. The Moon can cast shadows, too. Also, if you're out at night at a dark site, Venus, Jupiter, and Mars (but only when it's shining at its brightest) also can cast shadows.

• Although we've drawn the shadow cones coming from Spark and Roxanne here, it's actually unusual to be able to see those. Occasionally, shadow cones are visible here on Earth if the light source is bright and there's a lot of dust or pollen in the air.

• What we call a "shadow," then, is really the dark area where an object blocks light from reaching another object. Shadows always take on the shape of the object that's blocking the light. So, the shadow of a round planet or moon will be round.

Panel #5
• Saffron asks a good question.

Panel #6
• For a moon to cast its shadow on a planet, it has to be large enough that the shadow actually reaches the planet. Several of the big moons of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune are large enough for that to happen, but the small moons of those planets (and there are quite a few of them) aren't big enough.

• Mars' two moons are too small to cast a shadow on that planet. And Mercury and Venus have no moons, so no shadows on those worlds, either.

Panel #7
• Sunni points out something important about Moonie's shadow.

Panel #8
• Hmm. So, sometimes Moonie's shadow reaches Tara, and at other times, it doesn't. We'll find out why in Outer Space Pals #12.