Mountain Views News          Saturday, December 4, 2010

12

THE WORLD AROUND YOU

 Mountain Views News Saturday, December 4, 2010 


Cassini Finds Warm Cracks On Enceladus


New images and data from NASA’s Cassini spacecraft give 
scientists a unique Saturn-lit view of active fissures through the 
south polar region of Saturn’s moon Enceladus. They reveal a more 
complicated web of warm fractures than previously thought.

Scientists working jointly with Cassini’s composite infrared 
spectrometer and its high-resolution imaging camera have 
constructed the highest-resolution heat intensity maps yet of the 
hottest part of a region of long fissures spraying water vapor and 
icy particles from Enceladus. These fissures have been nicknamed 
“tiger stripes.” Additional high-resolution spectrometer maps of 
one end of the tiger stripes Alexandria Sulcus and Cairo Sulcus 
reveal never-before-seen warm fractures that branch off like split 
ends from the main tiger- stripe trenches. They also show an 
intriguing warm spot isolated from other active surface fissures.

“The ends of the tiger stripes may be the places where the 
activity is just getting started, or is winding down, so the complex 
patterns of heat we see there may give us clues to the life cycle of 
tiger stripes,” said John Spencer, a Cassini team scientist based at 
Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colo.

The images and maps come from the Aug. 13, 2010, Enceladus 
flyby, Cassini’s last remote sensing flyby of the moon until 2015.

The highest-resolution spectrometer scan examined the hottest 
part of the entire tiger-stripe system, part of the fracture called 
Damascus Sulcus. Scientists used the scan to measure fracture 
temperatures up to 190 Kelvin (minus 120 degrees Fahrenheit). 
This temperature appears slightly higher than previously measured 
temperatures at Damascus, which were around 170 Kelvin (minus 
150 degrees Fahrenheit).

Spencer said he isn’t sure if this tiger stripe is just more active 
than it was the last time Cassini’s spectrometer scanned it, in 2008, 
or if the hottest part of the tiger stripe is so narrow that previous 
scans averaged its temperature out over a larger area. In any case, 
the new scan had such good resolution, showing details as small as 
800 meters (2,600 feet), that scientists could see for the first time 
warm material flanking the central trench of Damascus, cooling 
off quickly away from the trench. The Damascus thermal scan 
also shows large variations in heat output within a few kilometers 
along the length of the fracture. This unprecedented resolution 
will help scientists understand how the tiger stripes deliver heat to 
the surface of Enceladus.

Cassini acquired the thermal map of Damascus simultaneously 
with a visible-light image where the tiger stripe is lit by sunlight 
reflecting off Saturn. The visible-light and thermal data were 
merged to help scientists understand the relationships between 
physical heat processes and surface geology.

“Our high-resolution images show that this section of Damascus 
Sulcus is among the most structurally complex and tectonically 
dynamic of the tiger stripes,” said imaging science team associate 
Paul Helfenstein of Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y. Some details 
in the appearance of the landforms, such as a peculiar pattern of 
curving striations along the flanks of Damascus, had not previously 
been noticed in ordinary sunlit images.

The day after the Enceladus flyby, Cassini swooped by the icy 
moon Tethys, collecting images that helped fill in gaps in the 
Tethys global map. Cassini’s new views of the heavily cratered 
moon will help scientists understand how tectonic forces, impact 
cratering, and perhaps even ancient resurfacing events have shaped 
the moon’s appearance.

You can contact Bob Eklund at: b.eklund@MtnViewsNews.com.

Q: I applied for a position over one month ago 
and was very excited to finally be contacted by 
the company recruiter for a telephone interview. 
The telephone interview lasted about 25 minutes. 
The recruiter informed me that he had several 
more interviews to conduct and that he would 
contact me as soon as possible regarding my 
status. He notified me one week ago that I pasted 
the interview and was being invited to take 
the next step, which was a written assessment. 
He said the written assessment would take 
about 90 minutes. The test was to analyze my 
writing and communications skills, critical 
and problem solving abilities, and my overall 
knowledge about the industry and profession. I 
agreed and completed the written assessment in 
their office. Yesterday, I was contacted by the 
recruiter and informed that I had passed the 
written assessment and that the next step would 
be a panel interview by staff and management. 
Is this the normal process that employers put 
candidates through before hiring someone? This 
process is very stressful and I am not sure it is 
worth it. What happen to submit your resume 
and application, interview and get hired? 

Really Stressed

Dear Really Stressed: 

Those days are long gone and will never return. 
Employers are receiving approximately 1,000 
applicants for every position they announce. 
This abundance of job seekers is a blessing 
and a curse for employers. Overwhelming 
responses to their open positions make it very 
difficult for employers to search out the ideal 
candidate, screen, interview and hire. Therefore, 
they have added several components to their 
screening process. Some of these components 
are: Searching and reviewing resumes and 
applications, telephone and in-person interview, 
written assessment and personality test, aptitude 
test, panel interview conducted by staff and 
another by management, background checks, 
references, and some employers are asking 
candidates to spend a day, at no pay, with their 
organization. And let’s not forget that salary 
plays an important part in the screening process. 
We are at the end of 2010 and the job market is 
not going to change that much for 2011. Next 
year will continue to be an employer’s market. 
Which means that you the job seeker will have 
to do what ever it takes to be considered or 
hired for a position? I know a job seeker who 
has been interviewed 10 times by one employer 
over a three month period. The job seeker was 
recently told by the employer that he is one of the 
final three candidates for consideration. It is a 
very competitive in trying to find employment 
and a position that is the right match for you. 
Remember that the employer’s process is to 
constantly screen-out applicants until they find 
what they believe is the best person for the position….
and that usually is the last candidate standing. Is going 
through all these various screening processes worth it 
to you? I say yes, if you want the position. So, don’t 
ever remove yourself from of the screening process. 
Stay until the employer tells you that you are no longer 
being considered for the position. Which I hope 
doesn’t happen. 

About a month ago a serious case 
of malware infection managed to 
do what the combined diplomatic 
efforts of the United Nations 
and several advanced militaries 
of the world were collectively 
not able to do. It also managed 
to do what billions of dollars 
in sanctions and being made a 
pariah in the eyes of the world 
wasn’t able to do and it managed 
to do what the threat of certain 
war could not do. It managed to shut down (or at 
least slow down) the Iranian Nuclear Program. No 
bombs were dropped and no lives were lost but 
the mission was accomplished. This new chapter 
in cyber warfare should give anyone who’s thought 
about the implications that this will have on our 
modern world a real reason to pause.

The star of this particular show is the Stuxnet 
worm. First discovered earlier this year, this 
particular worm appears to have been written 
to target the functioning of critical industrial 
infrastructure (i.e., power stations, electrical grids, 
manufacturing machinery).

From earlier analysis this worm appears to have 
been written with specific industrial targets in 
mind. This worm contains code that spies on and 
re-programs industrial systems and also is the first 
to include a logic module that can be programmed 
to attack specific system models and affect the 
operation of crucial system functions. Despite all 
of the worms’ technical sophistication it still needs 
a certain amount of human help to accomplish its 
goals. Target systems are usually infected via USB 
memory sticks and then mechanisms internal 
to the worm assist with navigation around the 
compromised network. This is really scary stuff. 

In this case the target just happened to be one 
highly unpopular with a certain segment of the 
international community and the cause appears 
to be one that “everyone” wants done. On the 
surface there appear to be many reasons why what 
happened could be considered a good thing but if 
we turn this page and continue reading just a little 
further we eventually come to the point where 
we have to ask ourselves what happens if and 
when “we” become the unpopular target of this 
new type of cyber-attack. The effect of a major 
power outage days in length or a scrambling of 
our air traffic control systems have the potential 
to bring our way of life to a screeching halt and 
even if the disruption is short in duration, the loss 
of life or damage to critical infrastructure could 
have consequences that last far beyond the point 
of contact.

Analysts are certain that this worm was created 
with nation-state support and was traded on 
the Internet for months before the actual attack 
occurred that damaged the Iranian nuclear 
facilities. Now that the next new thing in cyber 
warfare has made this spectacular debut it will 
undoubtedly be looking to make an even bigger 
splash the next time around. 

Ask jai……


Ask jai is a weekly column that will strive to honestly answer your job search questions 
relating to job searching techniques, networking skills, resume writing and interviewing. 
The employment situation is getting better, however, it is still a challenge finding were the 
jobs are located and how to get pass the “gate-keepers”. As an Executive Recruiter I was privy 
to working directly with Corporate Recruiters and understanding their process in selecting 
which candidates to interview and hire. I will candidly answer your questions, possibly 
bluntly answering you questions, but I will be totally honest. My objective is to help you 
achieve your employment goal. 

The New Thing 


Do you have children in 
elementary school? If so, they’re 
probably just beginning to learn 
their class’ songs for this year’s 
Winter Program. It’s called a 
“Winter” Program because that 
makes it Politically Correct. However, the songs 
rarely celebrate the season (except perhaps “Winter 
Wonderland” and “Baby It’s Cold Outside”)… so in 
the end usually someone is offended anyway.

What do I remember about the Winter Programs 
of my childhood? (Back then people didn’t worry 
as much about political correctness, and we called 
it something else). We typically performed only 
two songs, tops. In the early grades we just did one, 
due to our limited attention, 
memory, and endurance. 

I’ve heard that some schools 
have the children twist, spin, 
and skip to enliven their holiday 
tunes. None of my teachers 
incorporated dancing. (If I 
were bitter, I’d blame them for 
my current inability to dance!). 
Our movements were limited 
to small hand motions or 
slight swaying of the shoulders. 
Probably the reason for this 
restricted range of motion was 
that they packed us into three 
tight rows on risers. So much 
of the rehearsals were spent 
assessing our relative heights, 
rearranging us so that everyone’s 
face was visible, and training 
us to line up in the right order. 
Eventually we got around to 
singing. 

One of my teacher friends 
works at a school that has a particularly uninhibited 
kindergarten teacher who attaches empty coke 
cans filled with pennies to her students’ bottoms, in 
addition to jingly things on their heads, hands, and 
feet. The highlight of their number is when they 
turn their bums toward the audience and shake 
their tinkling tushies. No doubt their families will 
have embarrassing video evidence with which to 
blackmail them for years to come!

Winter Programs are just one of the many 
performances children participate in. However, 
there’s a huge difference between Winter 
Programs and events like recitals. And that 
difference is fear. In school programs, children are 
mandated participants, probably just lip-syncing 
unconvincingly while their classmates carry on 
an off-tune rendition of “Rockin’ Around the 
Christmas Tree.” At a piano recital, the child is 
there as a result of his or her own, or their parents’, 
decision. And recitals inevitably involve solo 
performances, which is where fear comes in. How 
many parents have sat in rigid, silent panic, white 
knuckling it through Johnny’s rendering of “The 
Holly and the Ivy?”

Children played 
instrumental pieces for the 
Winter Programs of my 
childhood, too. However, 
they performed as a group. 
The problem with this was 
that, in the case of our lip-
syncing, we had canned 
music to cover up our sour 
notes. These fledgling 
musicians had no such 
buffer. One year my mom 
delegated videotaping 
of the show to my dad, 
who positioned himself 
in the balcony with other 
camera-wielding fathers. 
The horn-players were so 
bad that my dad amused 
himself by zooming in and 
out in time with the music 
during their stumbling 
rendition of “Jolly Old Saint 
Nicholas.” So, if your kid is 
getting ready for one of these shows, I wish them 
attention, memory, and endurance. And I wish you 
the ability to stifle laughter when necessary, and, if 
you do snooze, to not snore too loudly.

WINTER 
PROGRAM