In an unprecedented effort to better the conditions and opportunities for women in astronomy, the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) is issuing and promoting a manifesto, entitled the Baltimore Charter.

Astronomers at the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in Baltimore, Maryland report that their ambitious program to make a digitized survey of the entire sky available to astronomers around the world will debut by the end of this year. At that time, STScI plans to have the survey of the southern sky digitally compressed and stored on a set of 60 CD-ROMs (compact disk read-only memory) which is a widely used computer media.

NASA's Hubble Space Telescope (HST) has discovered a new population of exceptionally bright and young star clusters at the heart of a head-on collision between two galaxies. The orbiting telescope also discovered a rotating, pinwheel-shaped disk at the center of the collision. In the Hubble photo, the disk resembles a full spiral galaxy, seen face on. Yet the disk is only ten thousand light-years across, about 1/20 the diameter of the whole galaxy.

NASA's Hubble Space Telescope (HST) has provided astronomers with their clearest look yet at a vast cloud of gas being heated by the birth of a new star. Called Herbig-Haro object #2 (HH-2), the cloud is heated by shock waves from jets of high speed gas being ejected from a newborn star. Because the star itself is embedded in a dusty cocoon, HH-2 provides the only visible clues to physical processes occurring in the young star.

Dr. Riccardo Giacconi, former Director of the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI), has been awarded the NASA Distinguished Public Service Medal for his outstanding leadership in development of the STScI.

The medal is awarded annually to individuals whose distinguished accomplishments contributed significantly to the NASA mission. It is the highest honor that NASA confers on a non-government individual.

Citing "teamwork and dedication in the development of the world's largest star catalog to be used in pointing the Hubble Space Telescope (HST)", NASA has given its Public Service Group Achievement Award to The Guide Star Catalog Group at Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI). Dr. Barry Lasker, Chief of the Catalogs and Surveys Branch, accepted this award on behalf of the group in a ceremony at Goddard Space Flight Center on March 30.

The Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) has selected 15 new scientists for the Hubble Postdoctoral Fellowship Program. The awardees were selected from a pool of 134 applications from highly-qualified candidates worldwide.

Astronomers announced today the discovery of a double nucleus in the active galaxy Markarian 315. The discovery was made from images taken by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope. The findings may solve a decade-old mystery about the nature of a jet-like feature in Markarian 315, a so-called Seyfert galaxy, and appear to confirm one mechanism for producing an active galactic nucleus. (Seyfert galaxies are spiral galaxies with very bright nuclei that may be powered by massive black holes that are accreting matter.)

Astronomer Laura Danly of the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) has taken a major step in solving a 3 year old mystery by measuring, for the first time, the distance to a high-velocity cloud of cool hydrogen gas. The results show conclusively that the cloud, and presumably others like it, dwell in the "halo" of our Milky Way Galaxy, rather than being between galaxies or in our own stellar neighborhood. (The halo is a spherical region surrounding the spiral disk of our galaxy).

This is an image of a small portion of the Cygnus Loop supernova remnant, taken with the Wide Field and Planetary Camera on NASA's Hubble Space Telescope on April 24, 1991. The Cygnus Loop marks the edge of a bubble-like, expanding blast wave from a colossal stellar explosion which occurred about 15,000 years ago.