Red Spot

A chess set figures prominently among the props for the Cal State Long Beach Opera production of Mozart's "Cosi fan Tutte," which closed Thursday at a deluxe site: the Queen's Salon on the Queen Mary. But a collection of puppets would have been more appropriate. Stage director Stephanie Vlahos has moved the action to the venerable ocean liner itself during a voyage in 1939, despite obvious contradictions in the text.

For only the second time in recent history, scientists have observed the results of an object plunging into the solar system's largest planet. The object, thought to be an asteroid or comet, left a large dark bruise that can still be seen spreading over Jupiter's southern hemisphere, according to Leigh Fletcher, a planetary scientist at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in La Canada-Flintridge. "This is an incredible event," Fletcher said in an interview.

I realize you couldn't cover all the eats available at each Red Line spot in your July 10 cover story ["Dining Destinations"], but as a public transportation dependent and a Red Line rider since its inception, let me just add a few that are available within walking distance of the Sunset/Vermont stop: In the Barnsdall shopping complex, for example, there is Yum, a fine Thai restaurant, as well as Jons Market, where the tres leches cake is first-rate --...

Intriguing new close-ups of Jupiter's icy companion Europa sent back by the Galileo spacecraft suggest that a huge watery underworld may lie beneath the moon's frozen crust, offering a possible habitat for life, researchers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena said Tuesday. In the wake of last week's dramatic discovery of possible ancient life on Mars, NASA chief Dan Goldin warned against jumping the gun.

If you're reading this, I can only presume that we're all still here. I've been waiting this past week for a comet-blasted piece of Jupiter to come knock the Earth into a corner pocket. Call it wishful thinking. Unless you are a) in a drooling coma; b) busy watching the endless O.J.

In 1977, Jimmy Carter moved into the White House, "Star Wars" and "Saturday Night Fever" premiered in theaters and the Voyager 1 and 2 spacecraft launched from Florida's Cape Canaveral to explore the outer solar system. In the years since, there have been five more presidents and five more "Star Wars" movies; disco has given way to punk, grunge and rap; and the Voyagers have flown billions of miles past Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. Their explorations aren't over yet. As scientists at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in La Cañada Flintridge marked the mission's 35th anniversary this week, they marveled that Voyager 1 was poised to leave the solar system - crossing the so-called heliopause and entering the vastness of interstellar space.

The collision of Jupiter with Fragment B of the comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 didn't look like much through the high-powered telescopes set up Saturday night by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory Astronomy Club in Pasadena. But it was a thrill nonetheless to the several hundred visitors who waited patiently for a chance to view the cosmic crash, one of a series of such events that continued through the week.

Scientists interested in learning more about the effects of time warps on the human brain should study Ken Jennings, the Salt Lake City software engineer and winningest game-show contestant in TV history. Until Tuesday, he'd been living in TV time, not letting on that his 75-game, $2.5-million "Jeopardy!" streak had petered out in September. "I've been as much in suspense as everyone else about this whole thing," Jennings said last month. Meanwhile, the blog kottke.

However blase we have become about space shuttle flights and spacecraft that travel to distant planets, the photographs from these missions are nothing short of awe-inspiring. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration's interplanetary vehicles have taken thousands of striking pictures of Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and various celestial bodies, giving earthlings their closest encounters with them.