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The article presents information on the Hubble Space Telescope. Topics include details on the orchestral piece "Cosmic Dust" written by composer Russell Steinberg and inspired by Hubble, details on Hubble's role in capturing images of items such as newborn stars and galaxies, and details on the advancements of Hubble throughout the years including an addition of an infrared camera.

The article reports on the crumbling of Comet 73P/Schwassman-Wachmann 3. The pieces of the comet will pass within 11.7 million kilometers of Earth--the closest any comet has come to Earth in 20 years. The ongoing breakup of the comet attests that the cores of comets are fragile. The article mentions infrared images of the comet taken with the Spitzer Space Telescope.

The article examines how, over the past several decades, the glowing remains of an explosion of hot gas and dust called Cassiopeia A has become one of the most studied supernova remnants in the heavens. Trained on Cassiopeia A for viewing sessions totaling 11.5 days, NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory has now taken the most detailed portrait ever recorded of any supernova remnant. The image provides new evidence linking supernova explosions to gamma-ray bursts, the most energetic flashes of radiation in the cosmos, says Chandra researcher J. Martin Laming of the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, D.C. The new image shows two oppositely directed jets, each about 10 light-years long, shooting out from the remnant's center. Previous images had shown only one jet. Laming's team conjectures that the jets are low-energy versions of those created by hypernovas-relatively rare and extremely powerful supernovas.

Scientists scanning satellite images of the southern Sahara have detected trails left on the landscape by the whirlwinds commonly known as dust devils, the first such observations made from Earth orbit. Cameras on several spacecraft that have landed on Mars have spotted such whirlwinds, and some images of the Red Planet from orbit show shadows cast by dust-filled funnel clouds, says Angelo Pio Rossi of the International Research School of Planetary Sciences in Pescara, Italy. When Rossi and his colleague Lucia Marinangeli looked at satellite photos of Earth for similar tracks, they found them on images of central Niger. Repeated images of the same locale at different times indicate that the tracks last, at most, only a few weeks. Researchers suggest that the windswept tracks reflect less sunlight than normal because the dust devils whisk away dust and small sand grains.

Reports on images recently released showing the surprise brightening of Comet Halley, first observed in February 1991. Focus on comet's coma; Previous decrease in size and brightness of cloud; Unknown reasons for outburst.

Scientists have finally received the pictures of Venus' atmosphere taken in February 1990 by the Galileo spacecraft as it whipped around the planet--one of a series of maneuvers that will give Galileo the speed needed to propel it to Jupiter, where it should arrive in 1995. Many spacecraft have looked at Venus' clouds, but Magellan both photographed the cloud tops and recorded near-infrared emissions from deeper clouds. The lower cloud patterns differ distinctly from those at the top, report Galileo scientists analyzing the images radioed to Earth from the craft. The near-infrared images revealed convection zones within clouds due to rising heat, while the cloud tops appeared fluffier--due to reflected sunlight--in the visible-light photographs.