Saturn

April and May are the best time of year for the northern hemisphere to see Saturn in the night sky , and Sunday night is the best night of all. That's because the ringed planet is at what astronomers call opposition, with Earth directly between it and the sun. That means the planet is at its brightest . Telescope users can get a particularly nice view of Saturn's rings. It will appear at nightfall in the eastern sky, and can be found by following the curve in the handle of the Big Dipper.

The driver of a Saturn sedan who had stopped in an eastbound lane of the Baltimore Beltway early Saturday was killed when a Ford pickup truck slammed into the vehicle, according to Maryland State Police. David Wilt, 33, of Pasadena, was pronounced dead at the scene, police said. Authorities said the crash occurred in the Anne Arundel County section of the highway, near Md. Route 2 in Glen Burnie. The eastbound lanes of the four-lane highway were closed for about five hours, until about 7:45 a.m. The accident occurred about 2:45 a.m. State police said Wilt either stopped or parked in the high-speed lane.

General Motors Co. is offering deep discounts on its remaining Saturn and Pontiac vehicles as it looks to move the leftover inventory of the soon-to-be-dead brands, according to a published report. The automaker will pay dealers $7,000 for every new Saturn or Pontiac left on their lot if the vehicle is moved to dealer-operated rental or service fleets, according to The Wall Street Journal. This allows the dealers to sell the cars and trucks to consumers at a discount, although the vehicles would be labeled as used because the dealer would technically be the first owner.

April and May are the best time of year for the northern hemisphere to see Saturn in the night sky , and Sunday night is the best night of all. That's because the ringed planet is at what astronomers call opposition, with Earth directly between it and the sun. That means the planet is at its brightest . Telescope users can get a particularly nice view of Saturn's rings. It will appear at nightfall in the eastern sky, and can be found by following the curve in the handle of the Big Dipper.

Ronald Johnston was standing in the showroom of Saturn of Glen Burnie yesterday morning leaning on the trunk of a shiny blue SL2 four-door and talking about General Motors' newest product when a service technician interrupted and pushed the car out the door.The $11,345 car was on its way to a new owner.A minute or two later, about 20 feet away, Lenore Fagen was eyeing a flashy red version of the new Saturn. The 22-year-old recreation therapist said the car had "gotten good reviews," and she liked its sporty appearance and the price: $13,650, before state taxes and tags.

A giant white spot hurtling around the equator of Saturn and recently photographed by the Hubble Space Telescope may be the result of a rare "burp" of gas from the ringed planet's interior into its frigid upper atmosphere, scientists said yesterday.The rapidly changing spot -- 6,000 miles wide, hundreds of miles thick and propelled by an eastbound jet stream at more than 1,000 miles per hour -- shows similarities to Jupiter's Great Red Spot, a massive, hurricane-type storm that has raged uninterrupted for at least 300 years.

LORDSTOWN, Ohio -- Saturn dealers and General Motors officials have their eyes on Lordstown, where a strike deadline looming today threatens to halt production of the GM showpiece."

Outside, Saturn Corp.'s future appears as bright as th dogwoods that will soon blossom in the Tennessee spring. For the first time, Americans last month bought more Saturns than Honda Accords. The company is hiring 1,000 workers for a third crew to start in June. The president of Saturn, General Motors Corp.'s $3.5 billion small-car venture, predicts that the subsidiary will break even by the end of the year.But inside Saturn's complex in Spring Hill, Tenn., three dissident groups are trying to unseat Mike Bennett, president of the United Auto Workers union local.

Saturn owners who couldn't make the trek to Spring Hill, Tenn., needn't feel left out this weekend.A local homecoming celebration, sponsored by Saturn of Ellicott City and Saturn of Glen Burnie, has been scheduled for noon to 7 p.m. tomorrow at Sandy Point State Park, just west of the Bay Bridge off U.S. Route 50.Bryan Mears, general manager of Saturn of Glen Burnie, which opened in July 1990 as the area's first Saturn dealership, says they realized it...

Marylanders who want to test drive a Saturn, the car that General Motors recently introduced to meet foreign competition, won't have to travel to Richmond, Va., to find the closest dealership much longer.Work has already begun on the three Saturn dealerships scheduled to open in Maryland in February.The site dedication of the Griffith Organization's Saturn of Glen Burnie was to take place today.Saturn of Owings Mills will service the northern Baltimore area. The Reisterstown Road Saturn will be run by the Heritage Automotive Group, an Owings Mills-based company.

The Full Pink Moon should be in view all night. Other common names for April's full moon are the Egg Moon, Sprouting Grass Moon or Easter Moon, according to EarthSky.org. Easter Sunday falls on the first Sunday after the first full moon of spring in the Northern Hemisphere. The moon will be flanked to its left by Spica, the brightest star of the constellation Virgo, as well as Saturn as it rises in the east sky.

In 1977, NASA flung a message in a bottle toward the stars. After a 10 billion-mile journey that traversed the paths of Jupiter and Saturn, the hardy little Voyager I spacecraft approached the edge of the solar system last week, poised to carry humanity's greetings to the universe beyond. During its 33-year flight, Voyager I and its sister ship, Voyager II, captured the imagination of millions of Earthlings with the first detailed pictures of Jupiter and Saturn, along with stunning images of their mysterious moons and intricate rings.

S aturn reaches opposition at 8 p.m., rising in the east as the sun sets "opposite" in the west. Saturn is "only" about 790 million miles away, making it as big and bright as it gets this year. Look for a steady, pale yellow "star" in the southeast after 9 p.m. Better still, find a telescope. You will never forget your first view of Saturn's rings with your own eyes. NASA's Cassini spacecraft, launched in 1997, has been orbiting Saturn since 2004, sending back spectacular photos of the planet and its moons.

General Motors Co. is offering deep discounts on its remaining Saturn and Pontiac vehicles as it looks to move the leftover inventory of the soon-to-be-dead brands, according to a published report. The automaker will pay dealers $7,000 for every new Saturn or Pontiac left on their lot if the vehicle is moved to dealer-operated rental or service fleets, according to The Wall Street Journal. This allows the dealers to sell the cars and trucks to consumers at a discount, although the vehicles would be labeled as used because the dealer would technically be the first owner.

Almost 400 years after Galileo spied Saturn's iconic ring system, a University of Maryland astronomer has discovered another gigantic but invisible ring around the planet. More than 14 million miles in diameter, it is by far the largest in the solar system. Maryland's Douglas P. Hamilton and two University of Virginia astronomers spotted the dark, dusty ring using NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope, which is orbiting the sun 66 million miles from Earth. They reported their find Wednesday in the journal Nature.

General Motors Co.'s deal to sell Saturn to the Penske Automotive Group has fallen through, forcing the automaker to shutter the brand altogether. The sale had been expected to be completed as soon as this week. "Penske Automotive Group ... has decided to terminate discussions with General Motors to acquire Saturn," GM Chief Executive Fritz Henderson said in a statement. As a result, "we will be winding down the Saturn brand and dealership network." The news is a blow to GM, which had made selling three of its brands, along with shutting Pontiac, a key component of its post-bankruptcy restructuring efforts.

General Motors launched Saturn into orbit last October, but the idea for creating the new car company began in a planning meeting in 1982.At that time, General Motors was relying on Japan and South Korea to set the pace for new-car design. The company had even formed a division called Geo to sell Japanese cars in its Chevrolet stores. But General Motors decided to go a step further in meeting the imports.Saturn managers were given a blank sheet to design not only a new car, but a new way of doing business.

General Motors shareholders should hope that Rick Hewitt becomes a trendsetter. The Union Lake sign painter recently bought a Saturn instead of another Honda."