Constellation

Out of the water for the first time since 1998, the 1854 sloop of war Constellation looked pretty good to its caretakers as they walked beneath its grimy hull, now propped up in dry dock at the Sparrows Point Shipyard. "I think we're surprised she's as clean as she is, for being in the water for 13 years," said Chris Rowsom, executive director for Historic Ships in Baltimore. "It shouldn't be too difficult to get her washed up and painted. " High on blocks just aft of Constellation is the 1944 submarine Torsk, which faces much more extensive work.

Earthlings will have a good chance of witnessing shooting stars between sunset Thursday and sunrise Friday, courtesy of the Geminid meteor shower. Dozens of bright objects will streak across the sky each hour between dusk and dawn as the annual Geminid show reaches its peak, according to the editors of StarDate magazine at the McDonald Observatory at the University of Texas in Austin. This year's display will not be impeded by light from the moon, since it will set shortly after the sun does.

Re "It's a Dog's Life After All" (Aug. 16): Dog days of summer is an old saying because the constellation Canis Major appears with the sun in the morning sky every morning of the summer months. The constellation is shaped like a dog, but you can usually only see its brightest star, Sirius, the Dog Star, if you get up early enough in the morning. MAGGIE ABBOTT Palm Springs

An intimate, two-hander play by a relatively unknown writer took home the top prize at this year's London Evening Standard Theatre Awards. "Constellations," by Nick Payne, won the prize for best play on Sunday, beating out works by Caryl Churchill and James Graham. "Constellations" ran at the Royal Court Upstairs earlier this year and starred Sally Hawkins and Rafe Spall. The play -- a cryptic, science-themed romance that runs a brief 70 minutes -- received mostly positive reviews.

The U.S. aircraft carrier Constellation and five accompanying Navy ships docked Tuesday at this Kenyan port on the Indian Ocean. Their five-day visit is the first such call by a carrier-led U.S. battle group in more than two years.

Earthlings will have a good chance of witnessing shooting stars between sunset Thursday and sunrise Friday, courtesy of the Geminid meteor shower. Dozens of bright objects will streak across the sky each hour between dusk and dawn as the annual Geminid show reaches its peak, according to the editors of StarDate magazine at the McDonald Observatory at the University of Texas in Austin. This year's display will not be impeded by light from the moon, since it will set shortly after the sun does.

A gamma-ray burst bright enough to be seen by the naked eye occurred when a collapsing star ejected a jet almost directly at Earth, researchers reported Thursday in the journal Nature. Emissions reached Earth on March 19 from a star in the constellation Bootes about 7.5 billion light-years away. Astronomers said that, considering its distance from Earth, it was the brightest explosion ever observed.

An F-14A Tomcat jet bounced off an aircraft carrier deck during an attempted landing and crashed, but the two fliers aboard were able to eject from the crippled plane safely, the Navy said today. The unidentified Navy pilot and radar-intercept officer were fished from the Pacific by a helicopter from the carrier Constellation after the accident Wednesday night. They were reported in good condition.

Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, have found a "Christmas Supernova," an exploding star in a galaxy millions of light years away in the constellation Eridanus. Supernovae are the violent, final explosions of large stars whose centers collapse as stores of hydrogen fuel are exhausted. Remaining helium and other atoms fuse to form heavy elements and release gravitational and nuclear energy, blowing most of the star apart.

A sailor accused of robbing and killing a shipmate on the carrier Constellation was sentenced to life in prison without parole after he abruptly pleaded guilty before his San Diego court-martial began. Seaman Marc Charles Delevieleuse, 20, of Stockbridge, Ga., pleaded guilty to three charges involving conspiracy to rob and kill Airman Thomas Sturdy, 21, of Chandler, Ariz., whose body was dumped overboard and never recovered. Navy Judge Cmdr.

For the first time, astronomers say they've borne witness to a supermassive black hole consuming a star. Two papers released Wednesday by the journal Nature describe powerful blasts of radiation whose brightness and behavior can be explained only by a sun-sized star being torn apart by the gravitational forces of a black hole at the center of its galaxy, the authors say. Scientists believe they have seen the aftermath of such stellar violence...

Constellation Energy Group Inc. has agreed to sell itself to Exelon Corp. in a $7.9-billion stock deal that would create the largest energy provider in the United States. The deal announced Thursday comes less than three years after Constellation narrowly averted bankruptcy and represents the Baltimore company's third attempt to sell itself since 2006. Chicago-based Exelon will have controlling interest in the combined company, if the deal is approved by shareholders and regulators.

Longtime Century City landlord JMB Realty Corp. wants to build the neighborhood's first office skyscraper in nearly a decade on a site once planned for a cluster of high-rise condominiums. The Chicago developer, through local affiliate Century City Realty, is seeking city approval for a 37-story tower on Avenue of the Stars at Constellation Boulevard that would be called Century City Center. JMB also will need to address homeowners concerned about growing density and traffic in their neighborhoods around Century City.

Out of the water for the first time since 1998, the 1854 sloop of war Constellation looked pretty good to its caretakers as they walked beneath its grimy hull, now propped up in dry dock at the Sparrows Point Shipyard. "I think we're surprised she's as clean as she is, for being in the water for 13 years," said Chris Rowsom, executive director for Historic Ships in Baltimore. "It shouldn't be too difficult to get her washed up and painted. " High on blocks just aft of Constellation is the 1944 submarine Torsk, which faces much more extensive work.

St. Petersburg, Fla. — Scientists have found evidence that oil has become toxic to marine organisms in a section of the Gulf of Mexico that supports the spawning grounds of commercially important fish species. Researchers from the University of South Florida said Tuesday that, in preliminary results, there appear to be droplets of oil among the sediments of a vital underwater canyon where clouds of oil from the BP spill were found. "So, indeed, the waters have a level of toxicity that needs to be recognized, and I think these were some of the first indicators that the base of the food web — the bacteria and the phytoplankton — may be affected," said David Hollander, chief scientist on a research vessel that just returned from a 10-day trip in the gulf.

In a cavernous structure at NASA's Plum Brook Station near Lake Erie, a concrete chamber five stories high rises from the ground. Its walls are 2 feet thick to withstand the blast of powerful gas-operated horns strong enough to destroy human organs. The $150-million facility was built to contain the next-generation manned spacecraft for the Constellation program, NASA's project to send humans back to the moon. It is the largest acoustic test chamber in the world, created to buffet the spacecraft with intense sound waves, simulating the stresses of launch.

Two sailors stationed aboard the San Diego-based aircraft carrier Constellation are being held in connection with the on-board death last August of a Navy airman, a Navy spokesman said. Alejo Hernandez Jr. of Rosharon, Tex., and Marc Charles Delevieleuse of Stockbridge, Ga., are in the 32nd Street Brig on suspicion of premeditated murder, robbery and murder committed during a robbery, Chief Petty Officer Craig M. Huebler said. Both men are 20 and are seamen.

It is an old saying in Washington: "The president proposes, but Congress disposes." Congress may well dispose of the president's plan for NASA, but if all they do is try to protect the special interests of their own congressional districts, then we will again have a human spaceflight program with no rationale except to protect vested interests. Twenty-seven members of Congress (two-thirds of them from Alabama and Texas) have written to NASA Administrator Charles Bolden saying: "The termination of the Constellation programs is a proposal by the president, but it is Congress who will accept or reject that proposal.

Delicately but deliberately, NASA is closing down the Constellation program that was to replace the space shuttle and return astronauts to the moon. President Obama wants to cancel NASA's moon plans and shut down the program in October. But Congress has not agreed and says Constellation cannot be legally scrapped without its OK. That leaves NASA caught in a tug of war. So engineers are building pieces of Constellation while at the same time NASA is turning off parts of the program that it never officially started with contracts.

It is an old saying in Washington: "The president proposes, but Congress disposes." Congress may well dispose of the president's plan for NASA, but if all they do is try to protect the special interests of their own congressional districts, then we will again have a human spaceflight program with no rationale except to protect vested interests. Twenty-seven members of Congress (two-thirds of them from Alabama and Texas) have written to NASA Administrator Charles Bolden saying: "The termination of the Constellation programs is a proposal by the president, but it is Congress who will accept or reject that proposal.