Questions are submitted to the Ask-An-Astronomer (AAA) team via email. Any personal information in the correspondence, such as email addresses and identifying information, is used only for correspondence and is not compiled for any other purpose. Any personal or identifying information may be released to governmental or law-enforcement agencies should a request for such information be received. In this case, users will be notified when information is released. Otherwise, though, personal information will never be released to any third party.
AAA-team responses are archived on our website and viewable openly on the Internet. Full names, email addresses, and other identifying information are removed from any archived responses to the best of our ability. By sending us a question, you are agreeing to have your anonymized question posted on our website. We will attempt to remove questions upon the request of the question asker.
In addition, we request that students of age 18 or younger give us their age so that we are sure to respond to the question (not all questions from the general public are answered), and so that we may tailor our responses to the appropriate level. Age information will not be used for any other purpose. We do not retain or compile age (or any other) information. Age information is not required for submission of a question.
While parental consent is not required for one-time requests for information, we do request that children under age 13 obtain parental permission to submit questions. We do not verify that parental consent has been obtained. We delete emails once responses have been delivered.
If you desire to know what information was obtained about your child, please contact us. We can forward you a copy of the email we received (provided it has not been deleted) and the response we provided.
Please let us know if there is any way we can be more helpful and/or more successful in our venture. Thanks for your interest!