This infrared image, viewing the planet from its south pole, shows three layers of Uranus’s atmosphere, composed of hydrogen and methane. The effect of the imaging is like looking at the edge of a soap bubble. The pictures were taken by Hubble as it orbited the Earth, taking one pair every 97 minutes.False colours can be useful. The rings around Uranus are not really white, but as black as charcoal. In the rest of the sequence, the moons Dione, Pandora, Prometheus, Mimas, Rhea and Epimetheus all emerge from behind the ring before disappearing again during the orbit. Note that a pair of stars passes behind the rings during the sequence, becoming visible on their own in the ninth frame. The green belt towards the south shows an area where the atmosphere absorbs blue light.

The two images were taken over one rotation of Neptune, lasting just over 16 hours.All photographs: NasaA sequence of 10 false-colour images of Saturn and its rings (right- hand page) shows a number of the gas giant’s small moons The images are paired, left and right. Clouds raised above most of the methane appear white, while the very highest clouds are yellow-red (the top of the right image). The exhibition runs until 19 July, with a parallel exhibition at the Science Museum.”Universe in Focus: the story of the Hubble Telescope” by Stuart Clark is priced pounds 16.99 from Cassell, ISBN 0-304-34945-3.The methane atmosphere of Neptune (left) absorbs red and infrared light, leading it to appear blue in this pair of images showing the weather on its opposite hemispheres. Hubble is now working near the theoretical limits of its instruments: we are seeing the universe, both near and distant, in more detail than ever before. And if any scientist is tempted to think that it lowers such work to display it as “art”, it’s worth reflecting that during the month that it lasts, the Blue Gallery’s exhibition expects to draw 10 times more people than usual every daynThe Blue Gallery is at 93 Walton St, London SW3. This includes a history of the HST, as well as useful comparisons of images taken from the ground, and before and after its repair in December 1993. As Arthur C Clarke, the famous British science-fiction writer, comments in a note to accompany the gallery exhibition, “First look and enjoy; later think about the implications.”
But those unable or unwilling to travel to London will still find many of the images reproduced in high quality, with explanatory text in the book Universe in Focus: the story of the Hubble Telescope by Stuart Clark.

The collection of 13 images has been chosen from the hundreds taken by the HST. There is also a parallel exhibition of other HST images running at the Science Museum, in South Kensington, so that those who wish to take their fill of the abstract nature of the universe will find plenty to occupy them. The attraction for gallery visitors lies just as much in their abstract form as their scientific content. Today an exhibition opens at the Blue Gallery in London, showing a number of HST images blown up to more than a square metre. Rather as Garry Kasparov found a worthy, if nonsentient chess opponent in the IBM computer Deep Blue, the wave of young artists rejecting oil painting in favour of digital manipulation have some serious competition from the orbiting Hubble Space Telescope.

However, the concept of a duty in private law which only arose when it had been acknowledged to exist was anomalous.The respondent accepted Cocks v Thanet District Council as authority for the proposition that the Part III duties which depended upon the housing authority being satisfied or not as to various matters gave rise to no private cause of action in tort, but argued that the temporory duty under section 63(1) was different, because it was framed in objective terms.The main difficulty with that argument was that it required the court to suppose that, in an Act imposing a number of duties enforceable only in public law, Parliament had intended to embed one temporary duty enforceable by an action in tort.Both in principle and on the authority of the actual decision in Cocks v Thanet District Council the appeal would be allowed.Kate O’Hanlon, Barrister. Until then its decision could be challenged only by judicial review.Lord Bridge had gone on to say that a duty in private law would arise once the housing authority had made a decision in the claimant’s favour. A second was that Part III of the 1985 Act made the existence of the duty to provide accommodation dependent upon a good deal of judgment on the part of the housing authority, which made it unlikely that Parliament had intended errors of judgment to give rise to an obligation to make financial reparation.The question of the appropriate remedy for breaches of duty under the Housing (Homeless Persons) Act 1977, of which Part III of the 1985 Act was a consolidation, had been considered by the House of Lords in Cocks v Thanet District Council [1983] 2 AC 286, in which it had been decided that no duty in private law could arise until the housing authority had made its inquiries and decided whether or not it was satisfied that the duty to house a claimant existed. Furthermore, there were certain contra-indications which made it unlikely that Parliament had intended to create private law rights of action.The first was that the Act was a scheme of social welfare, intended to confer benefits at the public expense on grounds of public policy. There was no doubt that it created a duty which was enforceable by proceedings for judicial review.The respondent relied on the proposition that a statute which appeared intended for the protection of a limited class of people but provided no other remedy for breach should ordinarily be construed as intended to create a private right of action Camden said, however, that it was enforceable in public law. Camden had agreed to make inquiries pursuant to section 62 of the Act to satisfy themselves as to whether he was homeless, and had provided temporary accommodation pursuant to section 63(1).The respondent claimed that Camden had thereby acknowledged that it owed him a duty under section 63(1) to secure that accommodation was made available, and alleged that, in breach of that duty, they had wrongfully evicted him from the accommodation and had not offered him alternative accommodation.Ashley Underwood QC and Brian McGuire (Council Solicitor) for Camden; Richard Drabble QC and Martin Russell (Moss Brenchley & Mullen) for Mr O’Rourke.Lord Hoffman said the question was whether section 63(1) of the Housing Act 1985 created a duty to the respondent which was actionable in tort. He would wander around the port of Newlyn, looking for relics from the fishing boats, which he would turn into original and beautiful pieces.

His early work is often described as violent, expressing his wildness and frustration He said, “All my life people have thrown stones at me In anger, I threw them back, but not now. Now I pick up the stones and carve them.”Some of his best works came from scrap metal, cast-offs from the industrial society. Gradually he filled the field around his little home with huge sculptures and carvings, and, when a few pieces sold, he slowly made improvements to his cottage. In recent years, as his work gained recognition, he bought a Land Rover and a few other luxuries, though he never wore shoes. His choice to go barefoot was not without its price (he once cut off his big toe with a garden strimmer, and the dog ran off with the toe and ate it) but it was a continual reminder to him of how near we always are to nature.A deeply spiritual man, Barrett saw nature as the inspiration for his art, and himself as a conduit through which nature expressed itself.