Mountain Views News          Saturday, June 2, 2012

11

THE WORLD AROUND US

 Mountain Views News Saturday June 2, 2012 


NASA PREPARING TO LAUNCH ITS NEWEST X-RAY EYES

 NASA’s Nuclear Spectroscopic 
Telescope Array, or NuSTAR, is 
being prepared for the final journey 
to its launch at Kwajalein Atoll in the 
central Pacific Ocean. The mission 
will study everything from massive 
black holes to our own Sun. It is 
scheduled to launch no earlier than 
June 13.

 “We will see the hottest, densest 
and most energetic objects with a 
fundamentally new, high-energy 
X-ray telescope that can obtain much 
deeper and crisper images than 
before,” said Caltech’s Fiona Harrison, 
the NuSTAR principal investigator , 
who first conceived of the mission 20 
years ago.

 The observatory is perched atop 
an Orbital Sciences Corporation 
Pegasus XL rocket. If the mission 
passes its Flight Readiness Review 
on June 1, the rocket will be strapped 
to the bottom of an aircraft, the 
L-1011 Stargazer (also operated by 
Orbital) on June 2. The Stargazer is 
scheduled to fly from Vandenberg 
Air Force Base in central California 
to Kwajalein on June 5 to 6.

 After taking off on launch day, the 
Stargazer will drop the rocket around 
8:30 a.m. PDT. The rocket will then 
ignite and carry NuSTAR to a low 
orbit around Earth.

 “NuSTAR uses several innovations 
for its unprecedented imaging 
capability and was made possible by 
many partners,” said Yunjin Kim, 
the project manager for the mission 
at JPL. “We’re all really excited to 
see the fruition of our work begin its 
mission in space.”

 NuSTAR will be the first space 
telescope to create focused images 
of cosmic X-rays with the highest 
energies. These are the same types 
of X-rays that doctors use to see your 
bones and airports use to scan your 
bags. The telescope will 
have more than 10 times the 
resolution and more than 
100 times the sensitivity 
of its predecessors while 
operating in a similar 
energy range.

 The mission will work 
with other telescopes 
already in orbit, including 
NASA’s Chandra X-ray 
Observatory, which 
observes lower-energy 
X-rays. Together, they will 
provide a more complete 
picture of the most energetic 
and exotic objects in space, 
such as black holes, dead 
stars and jets traveling near 
the speed of light.

 “NuSTAR truly 
demonstrates the value 
that NASA’s research and 
development programs 
provide in advancing the 
nation’s science agenda,” 
said Paul Hertz, NASA’s 
Astrophysics Division 
director. “Taking just over 
four years from receiving the 
project go-ahead to launch, 
this low-cost Explorer 
mission will use new mirror 
and detector technology 
that was developed in 
NASA’s basic research program 
and tested in NASA’s scientific 
ballooning program. The result of 
these modest investments is a small 
space telescope that will provide 
world-class science in an important 
but relatively unexplored band of the 
electromagnetic spectrum.”

 NuSTAR will study black holes 
that are big and small, far and 
near, answering questions about 
the formation and physics behind 
these wonders of the cosmos. The 
observatory will also investigate how 
exploding stars forge the elements 
that make up planets and people, 
and it will even study our own Sun’s 
atmosphere.

 The observatory is able to focus 
the high-energy X-ray light into 
sharp images because of a complex, 
innovative telescope design. High-
energy light is difficult to 
focus because it only reflects off 
mirrors when hitting at nearly 
parallel angles. NuSTAR solves 
this problem with nested shells of 
mirrors. It has the most nested 
shells ever used in a space telescope: 
133 in each of two optic units. The 
mirrors were molded from ultra-thin 
glass similar to that found in laptop 
screens and glazed with even thinner 
layers of reflective coating.

 The telescope also consists of state-
of-the-art detectors and a lengthy 
33-foot (10-meter) mast, which 
connects the detectors to the nested 
mirrors, providing the long distance 
required to focus the X-rays. This 
mast is folded up into a canister small 
enough to fit atop the Pegasus launch 
vehicle. It will unfurl about seven 
days after launch. About 23 days 
later, science operations will begin.

More information:

http://www.nasa.gov/NuSTAR

http://www.NuSTAR.caltech.edu

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


NASA's Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array, or NuSTAR, has a complex set of mirrors, or optics, that will help it 
see high-energy X-ray light in greater detail than ever before. These images show different views of one of two optic 
units onboard NuSTAR, each consisting of 133 nested cylindrical mirror shells as thin as a fingernail. The mirrors are 
arranged in this way in order to focus as much X-ray light as possible. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech


200 WORMS AND NOT A PAPER UMBRELLA IN SIGHT!

 If you were at the Buccaneer 
Lounge on May 21, please don’t 
think that the middle-aged lady 
asking for a paper umbrella was 
crazy. She’s not nuts --she’s just 
my mom. Let me lead you down 
the winding trail of how my mom 
found herself in the Buccaneer on 
a Monday afternoon. It all started 
on Sunday, the day of the solar eclipse. I’ve heard that 
eclipses bring out the weirdness in people and animals. 
Maybe that’s why something seemed off kilter when I 
left for a jog around town. Passing Alverno, I couldn’t 
help but notice a little gray fluff ball perched on a twig 
in the middle of the sidewalk. On close inspection, 
two beady eyes gazed out of the feathers as if to ask, 
“What ‘choo lookin’ at?”

 Some people are dog people. Some people are cat 
people. And then there are bird people, who are, at least 
stereotypically, a bit weirder than their mammalian 
counterparts. (Apologies to all my fellow bird people, 
but you must admit it’s true...) Locked in a staring 
contest with the finch, there was no use denying it now 
--our paths were crossed.

 Had the encounter occurred closer to my apartment, 
or if I had been carrying my cell phone, things would’ve 
been easier. Nevertheless, there I was with Finch, and 
what bird-loving person wouldn’t try to rescue him out 
of harm’s way? (By “harm,” I mean cats, dogs, coyotes, 
etc.) Seeing how comfortable Finch was on his twig, I 
cupped my hands over him and the twig and began the 
trek to my parents’ house, because they have cages and 
baby bird food.

 I felt a little funny walking with my hands clasped 
together against my chest, the long ends of the branch 
sticking out on either side like awkward curb finders. 
Having finally arrived at my parents’, we shortened 
Finch’s stick and put him (still attached to the stick) 
in a cage. My parents are retired, so they were able 
to watch Finch when I went to work the next day. Or 
rather, they didn’t have a good excuse not to watch him

 Work passed uneventfully, but when I called my 
parents, they explained their day was anything but 
ordinary! Apparently Finch was suspicious of his semi-
liquid food, and refused to open his mouth to be fed. 
They tried waiting until he peeped to shove in the food. 
But he became very good at peeping through a closed 
beak, like a bird ventriloquist. Fearing that he’d die of 
starvation, my mom decided to find a more palatable 
food for him. “Worms! We’ll try feeding him worms!” 
So she and my dad went to Pet Smart for worms. 
Wouldn’t you know? They didn’t have any. Then they 
went to the Pet Surplus store. No luck there, either. So 
they drove up and down Foothill in Monrovia, trying 
to find the new location of “Highlander Pets,” a reliable 
worm supplier. At last they found it. Unfortunately, 
the owner was out of the containers of 25 meal worms, 
and the smallest quantity she had was 200. Desperate, 
my parents bought it. Back at the house hours later, 
Finch was even less interested in the worms than he 
had been in the formula. He looked at the squirming 
worms with repugnant disdain. 

 Meanwhile, my parents were 
hustling to finish an “End of School” 
series for their online teachers’ 
resource store*. They had nearly 
everything ready except the sample 
photo for a pop-up summer/math 
coloring card. The finished product 
involved a bear holding a paper 
umbrella. Unbeknownst to me 
or my dad, my mom took it upon 
herself to rustle up a paper cocktail 
umbrella for this photo.

 She tried Albertson’s, they 
scoured the liquor department, but 
came up empty-handed. Rite-Aid, too, was a bust. (A 
pharmacy isn’t the first place I’d think to go looking 
for cocktail ware. But I think she was there to pick up 
dental floss anyway.) Back in Sierra Madre, my mom 
tried Happy’s. Several different people there tried to 
interest her in bloody mary mixes and marguerita salt, 
but the paper umbrella remained elusive. At the end 
of her tether, my mom decided to try the Buccaneer’s. 
She was parked in back, so as she walked towards the 
rear entrance, she noticed a group of men smoking 
and lounging around in the back. (A familiar sight to 
anyone who parks behind those shops.) But my mom 
felt self-conscious, and went through the Mail Boxes 
store to enter through the front of the Buccaneer. 

 The Buccaneer’s a great place. I haven’t been there in 
a few years, but I remember it was great, and I assume 
it still is. However, my mom didn’t quite fit in with its 
usual crowd. And as if being a middle-aged, teacher-
type lady wearing flip flops in the Buccaneer Lounge 
on a Monday afternoon wasn’t enough --she had to ask 
for a paper umbrella to top it all off. The bartender 
looked around. “Nope. Sorry, I’ve run out.” At this 
point, the guys at the bar had taken a keen interest 
in this novel visitor, and started making suggestions. 
“Did you try Albertson’s?” “What about Highland 
Liquor? Oh wait... they closed.” Embarrassed and 
umbrella-less, my mom thanked everyone and left as 
quickly as possible.

 I said that my mom went on this excursion without 
letting me or my dad know. So, you can imagine her 
surprise when my dad went to the garage and returned 
momentarily with a paper umbrella, (Apparently he 
had one stuck in a tool on his work bench, just because 
it looked cute). Then when I called, I told her I had 
half a box of paper umbrellas in my office (don’t ask). 
Needless to say, my mom now has enough paper 
umbrellas to last her way into next year. The bird 
finally started eating the formula, with gusto. So, let us 
know if you need any meal worms.

* (My mom’s a newly retired third grade teacher of 37 
years! If you teach grades 1-3, or know anyone who 
does, please visit her website www.teacherspayteachers.
com/store/Mary-Hopkins-11. Even if you don’t have 
any educational connections, please visit and like her 
on Facebook! Thanks!) 


A FLAME WAR

 A very sophisticated piece of malware has been making the rounds in the Middle East and is believed 
to be the work a well-run, and well-financed, state-run cyberwarfare operation. The malware, which 
was discovered by Kaspersky Labs, has been found to be an espionage kit and has done considerable 
damage to computers and industrial systems in Iran, Lebanon, Syria, Sudan, the Israeli Occupied 
Territories and other surrounding areas for just about the last two years. 

 The malware, dubbed “Flame” by security researchers, bears little resemblance to another piece 
of cyberwarfare code called “Stuxnet”. Last year the “Stuxnet” malware made headlines when it was 
revealed that the malicious code had wreaked havoc on the Iranian Nuclear program in 2009 and 
2010. It was groundbreaking in this respect as it was the first of its kind and is widely believed to have 
nation-state support. 

 Deep programming analysis of the Flame malware has revealed that the malware is a full-blown 
espionage kit that was designed to collect information on the infected computer and forward that 
information, in an encrypted format, to command-and-control servers located outside of the 
compromised network. The malware also contains functionality that opens a backdoor on the 
infected system and the malware can also be modified by adding or removing programming modules 
to customize the capabilities of the malware. 

 Among Flame’s many modules is one that turns on the internal microphone of an infected machine 
to secretly record conversations that occur either over Skype or in the computer’s near vicinity; 
another module turns Bluetooth-enabled computers into a Bluetooth beacon, which scans for other 
Bluetooth-enabled devices in the vicinity to siphon names and phone numbers from their contacts 
folder; and a yet a third module grabs and stores frequent screenshots of activity on the machine, such 
as instant-messaging and e-mail communications, and sends them via a covert SSL channel to the 
attackers’ command-and-control servers. 

 The malware also has a sniffer component that can scan all of the traffic on an infected machine’s 
local network and collect usernames and password hashes that are transmitted across the network. 
The attackers appear to use this component to hijack administrative accounts and gain high-level 
privileges to other machines and parts of the network. From just this cursory review, it’s quite clear that 
quite a bit of technical know-how went into the production and dissemination of this sophisticated 
malware. No one, at the moment, knows where this started; and some say it’s really anyone’s guess as 
to which nation-state may be responsible for this targeted attack.

UNITED HOPE FOR ANIMALS

A More Humane, Holistic 
Approach to the Pet 
Overpopulation Problem

According to statistics reported by Los Angeles 
Animal Services during the short 12 month period 
from April 2011 to March 2012, a total of 57,640 
cats and dogs were taken in at LA animal shelters 
alone, 22,569 of which were euthanized, including 
puppies and kittens. This does not include all of 
LA County, this is just in the city of Los Angeles. 
In a highly developed, educated, sophisticated 
society with so many advantages, how on earth 
can that possibly be? I just don’t understand why 
people are still breeding and/or failing to neuter 
or spay their pets, with these statistics in mind. I 
feel very strongly that there should be a law against 
breeding altogether, until we can get this thing 
under control. The simple fact is that there are far 
too many homeless animals with far too few good 
homes to place them in. When will the madness 
end? Unless we make some radical changes in our 
animal rights and protection legislation, thousands 
more innocent, defenseless pets will perish at the 
hands of the senseless human being. We should be 
ashamed of ourselves for allowing this to happen.

Fortunately, not everyone is turning their back 
on this important issue, in fact many are uniting 
to help provide more humane conditions and a 
second chance for life. United Hope for Animals 
(UHA) is a 501c3 non-profit organization 
committed to community-based solutions to 
animal welfare issues. Through three programs, 
they take a holistic approach to ending and 
preventing suffering. Two of their programs 
are in Mexico. Through the ‘Perrera Program‘, 
UHA provides drugs to Baja pounds (perreras), 
to humanely end the suffering of pets who 
have no other options. Before UHA established 
relationships with the pounds in Baja, dogs were 
euthanized through electrocution. In partnership 
with their sister organization, Animal Advocates 
of the United States, they have succeeded in 
reaching all of the perreras in Baja, which are now 
electrocution free! UHA also sponsors a monthly 
spay/neuter clinic in Ensenada and surrounding 
communities to prevent suffering due to pet 
overpopulation. At the last spay/neuter clinic, 92 
animals were altered and won’t be contributing to 
the overpopulation problem.

Here in Los Angeles, UHA sponsors what they 
call the ‘Shelter Support Program’ wherein they 
work with the Baldwin Park Animal Shelter to 
facilitate pet adoptions. Baldwin Park is an LA 
County shelter that manages animal control for 
several different cities. On any given day, they 
have up to 350+ dogs and 250+ cats. They intake 
as many as 50-70 pets a day, and even more 
during the summer months. UHA works very 
hard in partnership with the staff at the Baldwin 
Park shelter, to reduce the euthanasia rate. They 
do this in a few ways. First, they hold “Glamour 
Shot Days” at the shelter every two weeks. Their 
dedicated volunteers go to the shelter, get to know 
about 80 pets, mostly dogs but some cats too, take 
studio quality photos and videos and write a bio 
on each one, after which the photos, videos and 
bios are compiled and networked to the rescue 
community and adopting public. Next, UHA’s 
volunteer adoption coordinators interface with 
potential adopters, to help identify and match 
them with the pet that would best fit their home 
and lifestyle. They also assist the new pet owners 
in navigating through the adoption process, to 
help make it an easier, more positive experience.

UHA’s goals with their Shelter Support Program 
are two-fold; First, to bring identity, dignity 
and hope to the lives that would otherwise pass 
anonymously through the city/county animal 
control system, and second, to educate the public. 
Many people are not even aware of the magnitude 
of the pet overpopulation problem, and are 
surprised to learn about Baldwin Park, which 
is just one of several shelters in this city. They 
recently worked with a couple of classes from Cal 
State LA, and the students found the experience 
quite illuminating. Most of them, professed animal 
lovers, had never been to a shelter and had never 
heard of a microchip. Many even said that the 
experience with UHA helped change their view 
of animals. In addition to advocating adoptions at 
the Baldwin Park shelter, UHA also holds a mobile 
adoption event once a month at the PetCo store in 
La Canada. Their volunteers also take on personal 
rescue projects such as fostering and placing dogs 
and cats in loving homes. The Shelter

Support Program has recently been expanded to 
the Downey area, and will soon be expanding to 
Carson as well. The ultimate goal for UHA, with 
sufficient funding, is to expand this excellent 
program into every city they possibly can.

If this article had ended after the first paragraph, 
it would be pretty depressing. But, thanks to the 
animal-loving, hard-working volunteers at United 
Hope for Animals, it will end as a much happier 
tale. UHA advocates approximately 160 shelter 
pets a month, with a 94% success rate, and as an 
avid animal lover myself, that makes me very 
happy! For more information about how you can 
volunteer or support United Hope for Animals 
through the a donation, please visit their website 
at: www.unitedhope4animals.org. It is through the 
generosity of donors such as yourself that they are 
able to carry out their good work on behalf of the 
animals. Many thanks to the beautiful people at 
UHA. My heart goes out to you!


Happy Tails

by Chris Leclerc