Galileo

One of the finest and most disturbing scenes in Center Stage's production of Bertolt Brecht's "Galileo" takes place during a masked ball at a cardinal's home in Rome. Galileo has just been told that the Catholic Church wants him to abandon his heretical studies claiming the Earth revolves around the sun."Let us replace our masks," says one of the cardinals when the discussion is over. Then he notices, "Poor Galileo hasn't got one."In the restrictive 17th-century Italy of Brecht's play, the truth is often hidden, or suppressed, behind the vestments of the Church.

Like father, like son.Despite the cliche, this is the first time Robert and Bo Foxworth, father and son actors, have seen it in action.Sitting in Center Stage's sunny rehearsal hall, the Foxworths are discussing what it's like to perform together in Bertolt Brecht's "Galileo" -- their first joint acting effort. And it doesn't take Galileo's telescope to pick up on the family resemblance.Both have reddish-brown beards, although Robert's is a full beard, shaded with gray, and Bo's is a goatee.

Audiences at Center Stage's production of Bertolt Brecht's "Galileo" will find something different in the program. For the first time, the theater is dedicating a production to an individual.That individual is Baltimorean T. Edward Hambleton, who produced the first American production of "Galileo" in 1947. The production starred Charles Laughton, who was also responsible for the English language version -- the one Center Stage is using."I don't think people have any idea of how large his career has been in the American theater," Center Stage artistic director Irene Lewis says of Hambleton, 85, who is regarded as a pioneer of off-Broadway theater.

Center Stage has received the rights to produce August Wilson's Tony Award-nominated play "Seven Guitars" and has scheduled performances from April 25 to June 1 in the Pearlstone Theater.The nonprofit professional theater also has finalized plans to present Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet" as part of the 1996-1997 season. The play will run Jan. 31 through March 9.Center Stage's six-play season opens Sept. 27 with Bertolt Brecht's "Galileo."A part of historyYou and your family have a chance to become part of a historic Smithsonian exhibit, "The American Family," sponsored by Discover card to celebrate the American family and the Smithsonian Institution's 150th birthday.

The weather on Jupiter is bad, and it only gets worse the deeper you sink beneath those colorful, swirling cloud tops astronomers have studied for so long.Scientists told the 1996 spring meeting of the American Geophysical Union in Baltimore this week that the Galileo spacecraft's atmospheric probe found winds approaching 500 mph about 100 miles under the visible cloud tops.That's a pitch-dark place beneath a thick overcast of ammonia clouds where the sun's energy doesn't penetrate, they said.

In its successful plunge into the crushing Jovian depths last month, a capsule from the Galileo spacecraft survived for 57 minutes to transmit a wealth of data from the first view inside the atmosphere of Jupiter or any of the giant gaseous planets.It was time enough to jolt scientists with surprises about the planet's clouds, winds, water and chemical composition and second thoughts about their own theories of planetary formation.Scientists reported yesterday that Jupiter appeared to have much less water than expected, clearer skies, less lightning but fierce atmospheric turbulence, winds that grow stronger at depths, and lower than expected levels of helium, neon and some heavy elements like carbon, oxygen and sulfur.

AMERICANS MAY NOT have noticed, but in the past month the yin-yang argument over the direction of U.S. space exploration was played out before them. Amid the quiet debate over whether robotic spacecraft should take precedence over more expensive and dangerous manned space flights, each type of mission had a success.In November, the shuttle Atlantis was docked for eight days to the Russian space station Mir. It was one more experiment toward building a U.S. space station that will give this nation a continuous manned presence in space.

IT TOOK 52 minutes for signals traveling at the speed of light from Galileo's probe of the planet Jupiter to reach NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California this week. But processing the signals took longer than expected, and the unexpected 10-minute delay before scientists knew they had the data in hand produced what was surely the most agonizing wait in a long and often frustrating attempt to peer into the huge and mysterious planet at the outer reaches of the solar system.Despite obstacles, Galileo had accomplished the core of its $1.3 billion mission -- dropping the probe into the stormy, gaseous atmosphere of Jupiter and putting itself in orbit around the planet, where it will stay for almost two years.

PASADENA, Calif. -- In the first penetrating exploration of Jupiter, an instrument-laden capsule from the Galileo spacecraft plunged yesterday into the roiling atmosphere of the largest planet in the solar system and took the measure of its temperatures, density and other-worldly chemistry.Last night, the Galileo spacecraft fired its rocket to slow down and entered a wide-ranging orbit of Jupiter. It is the first spacecraft to orbit one of the giant outer planets for a long-term campaign of photography and detailed observations.

A half-billion miles from Earth, a tiny spacecraft is racing toward a historic and fiery rendezvous with the planet Jupiter, now far beyond the sun in the daytime sky.About 5 p.m. Thursday, a 747-pound, bullet-shaped capsule packed with seven scientific instruments, a radio and a parachute will plunge into Jupiter's atmosphere. Accelerated by gravity, it will reach speeds faster than any man-made object has ever flown.Back on Earth, scientists at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.