Graduation 1999 or bust
Among the 1,085 Johns Hopkins University under-graduates who will receive degrees on Thursday, there are some who will hold diplomas that have come to mean more than simply the conclusion of four challenging academic years. Their diplomas symbolize their resolve to reach this one particular day, no matter how grueling the path leading to it.
   These are the stories of four of those quiet stars of the class of 1999. Full story...

Hopkins' FUSE satellite: Countdown to launch
A space telescope designed to sort through the chemical muck and star-making stew of the universe will begin scouring for the fossil record of the origins of the universe when it is launched from Cape Canaveral in early summer.
   The bold examination--of objects from nearby planets to the extreme outskirts of the cosmos--is expected to reveal the earliest relics of the Big Bang and provide a detailed picture of the immense galactic structure of the Milky Way. In the end, scientists say the satellite should help them make a huge leap toward understanding how the primordial chemical elements, out of which all life evolved, were created and distributed since the beginning of time. Among the questions:
   What were conditions like moments after the Big Bang?
   How do galaxies evolve?
   Does the Milky Way have a vast galactic fountain that births stars, spews hot gas, circulates chemicals and churns cosmic material over and over again?
   Will a fossil remnant of earliest times subvert the most fundamental suppositions of the Big Bang theory?
   On June 23, a team led by The Johns Hopkins University is scheduled to launch a satellite named FUSE--for Far Ultraviolet Spectroscopic Explorer--and begin a long-awaited quest to cull answers to some of these vexing questions about the origins of the universe. Full story...

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