Galileo

Astronomers watched in fascination this past week as pieces of Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 slammed into Jupiter with the force of a million H-bombs, producing shock waves and sonic booms that rippled outward after each impact, creating new features visible from Earth in the atmosphere of the solar system's largest planet. Observations of these spectacular events promise a rich harvest of important scientific information.There is evidence the comet fragments have significantly perturbed large regions of Jupiter's atmosphere.

Astronomers around the world were waiting for the third "shoe" to drop today as the last of a trio of comet fragments headed for splashdown in the same area of Jupiter.Reports reaching the Goddard Space Flight Center this morning said that the first -- fragment Q2 of comet P/Shoemaker-Levy 9 -- struck on schedule about 3:45 p.m. yesterday.Fragment Q2 was accompanied by a fragile companion, Q1, which fell nearby, making a barely discernible mark on the Jovian cloud tops. Scientists today dubbed it a "Q-let."

Palo Alto, California -- According to schoolbook an common-culture legend, the Vatican, in 1633, forced Galileo to renounce the theories which put the sun instead of the earth at the center of the universe, presumably because demoting mankind from the central position was contrary to scripture as the church interpreted it. In his moment of humiliation, Galileo is said to have turned aside and muttered, ''eppur se muove,'' which can be translated as ''nevertheless,''...

ROME -- More than 350 years after the Roman Catholic Church condemned Galileo for teaching that the Earth moved around the sun, Pope John Paul II is poised to rectify one of the Inquisition's most infamous wrongs.With a formal statement at the Pontifical Academy of Sciences today, Vatican officials said the pope will formally close a 13-year investigation into the church's condemnation of Galileo in 1633.The condemnation, which forced the astronomer and physicist to recant his discoveries, led to Galileo's house arrest for eight years before his death in 1642 at the age of 77.The dispute between the church and Galileo has long stood as one of history's great emblems of conflict between reason and dogma, science and faith.

PASADENA, Calif. -- The latest attempt to free the stuck antenna on the Jupiter-bound Galileo spacecraft has failed, placing the $1.4 billion mission in jeopardy.Engineers at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory here had hoped to use the coldness of space to chill and shrink part of the antenna, thus freeing three stuck ribs, but by yesterday morning it had become clear that the strategy had not worked."It's a disappointment," said project manager William O'Neil, but he said that the technique will be tried again in December when Galileo will be even farther from the sun -- and thus colder -- than it is now.The $3.7 million gold-plated antenna is designed to open like an inverted umbrella, and it must be fully opened for Galileo to send back the thousands of photographs and reams of scientific data it is to collect during a two-year tour of Jupiter and its moons beginning in 1995.

PASADENA, Calif. -- The latest attempt to free the stuck antenna on the Jupiter-bound Galileo spacecraft has failed, placing the $1.4 billion mission in dire jeopardy.Engineers at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory here had hoped to use the coldness of space to chill and shrink part of the antenna, thus freeing three stuck ribs, but by yesterday it had become clear that the strategy has not worked."It's a disappointment," said project manager William O'Neil, but he said that the technique will be tried again in December when Galileo will be even farther from the sun -- and thus colder -- than it is now.The $3.7 million gold-plated antenna is designed to open like an inverted umbrella, and it must be fully opened for Galileo to send back the thousands of photographs and reams of scientific data it is to collect during a two-year tour of Jupiter and its moons beginning in 1995.