Eclipse

After a century of study, scientists have unlocked the secrets of a mysterious 2,100-year-old device, known as the Antikythera mechanism, showing it to be a complex and uncannily accurate astronomical computer. The mechanism, recovered in more than 80 highly corroded fragments from a sunken Roman ship in 1901, could predict the positions of the sun and planets, show the location of the moon and even forecast eclipses. The international team of scientists reported today that the 1st-century B.C. device, the earliest known example of an arrangement of gear wheels, shows a technological sophistication that was not seen again until clockwork mechanisms were introduced in the 14th century.

The image is out of The Jetsons, minus the convertible briefcase: Ultra-small aircraft flying around by the thousands to ferry business people to work. But to the makers of one new airplane, this is not animation. Eclipse Aviation Corp.'s Eclipse 500, which received provisional government certification July 27, weighs less than 10,000 pounds, seats up to six and can land at almost any general-use airfield. It flies faster than propeller planes and more efficiently than existing business jets.

Elkton-- --Before foam fingers. Before steroids. Before the Babe, Teddy Ballgame and the Say Hey Kid, there were ballists and muffins and cranks in the stands shouting, "Thunderation!" Strikers waggling willows sent sockdolagers to the garden. Hurlers were fined for throwing "deceitful" pitches by an arbitrator formally dressed in a black frock coat and bowler. And woe to the gloveless behind trying to corral a jimjam with a runner bearing down on the dish. That was then and it is now. For the first time since the 1800s, men are playing the sepia-tone version of the national pastime on grassy fields in Elkton, Easton and Baltimore.

The Great Match Race John Eisenberg Houghton Mifflin / 272 pages / $25 Let's get right to the point: This is a lead-pipe cinch, mortal lock, lay-your-money-down sure thing of a book. John Eisenberg, The Sun's long-time sports columnist, has rescued a tale from America's equine past that belongs on the same shelf with William Nack's Secretariat: The Making of a Champion, Jane Schwartz's Ruffian: Burning From the Start, and Laura Hillenbrand's enormously successful best-seller, Seabiscuit: An American Legend.

Marylanders missed Wednesday's total eclipse of the sun because the path of totality ran across Africa, Turkey and Central Asia. But we have a front-row seat for another celestial spectacle tomorrow evening. Between dusk and 9 p.m., the slim crescent moon, traveling in its orbit around the Earth, will pass in front of a densely packed cluster of bright stars in the western sky called the Pleiades, or "Seven Sisters." As it does, the "dark" side of the moon's disk will eclipse some of the Pleiades' brightest stars, one after the other.

The universe has gone beautifully awry. The temperature drops, daylight darkens eerily, dots of sunlight on the ground turn into crescents, sunlight on pale colors starts to ripple as though reflected through a swimming pool. Then the moon fully covers the sun -- which turns into a black dot in the sky surrounded by a diaphanous halo, stars and planets. If watching a total solar eclipse is not the most incredible experience you can have, it has few competitors. A solar eclipse occurs when the sun, moon and Earth line up (in that order)

Maryland's backyard stargazers can look forward to a fine year under the night sky in 2006. The calendar promises excellent meteor showers, with a busy schedule of bright appearances and intricate conjunctions of the moon and the naked-eye planets. But celestial mechanics can also be cruel. The new year will be another lean one for eclipses visible from Maryland. And while amateur astronomers have their telescopes trained on a number of comets this year, none is expected to be as eye-popping as Hyakutake in 1996 and Hale-Bopp in 1997.

Rewind to 1993 in hip-hop. G-funk is booming. And the hedonistic, misogynistic, over-the-top violent albums of Snoop Dogg, Ice Cube and 2Pac are selling by the truckloads, upsetting conservative media pundits and PTA members. Although gangsta rap receives a lot of ink in magazines and newspapers across the country, and MTV keeps the grimy videos in frequent rotation, there is another hip-hop sound in full bloom. This movement, if you will, is the antithesis of the roughneck posturing associated with the G-funk era. Acts like Gang Starr and A Tribe Called Quest provide a literate, soulful brand of rap. The overall blend is smooth, organic, infused with a hip jazziness and generally appeals to the progressive "backpack crowd."

ASHBURN, Va. -- The NFL season is into its eighth week, and the Manning brother with more touchdowns and fewer interceptions is not Peyton. Eli Manning has thrown more touchdown passes (12 to 11) and fewer interceptions (four to five) than his older brother, but when they connect for their twice-a-week phone conversations, Eli Manning said he doesn't offer much counsel to the league's two-time reigning Most Valuable Player. "I haven't given him any advice," Manning said. "I think he knows everything already, and he understands that it's a team game.

In Brief Partial eclipse tonight The southern United States will be treated to a solar eclipse tonight at dinnertime, but even with safe viewing equipment and clear skies, Marylanders will see just a fraction of it. The moon's shadow will race across the Pacific Ocean, making landfall in Costa Rica and Panama before crossing the northern end of South America. There, the eclipse will be total, or "annular," with the moon blocking all but the outermost ring of the sun's disk. Between here and there, it will be a partial eclipse.