My name is Paul, and I'm from central Massachusetts. I don't have a degree or work in astronomy, or any other science or engineering, but I have had a strong interest in astronomy since I was 7 years old and popped open a book that had a diagram of the solar system. Once I read that one of the planets that one could see in the night sky was hundreds of times larger than the earth and had more than 20 moons, and that there were stars that were hundreds of times more massive than the sun that actually exploded, I was hooked. I also developed a passionate interest in history, and went on to be a history major (I was always much more comfortable with words than with numbers) but I never lost a layman's interest in astronomy and space exploration. Now I sometimes combine the two by looking for information on the history of science and space exploration.