Mountain Views News          Saturday, October 26, 2013

B3

The World Around Us

 Mountain Views News Saturday, October 26, 2013 


COUNTDOWN TO LAUNCH A BILLION STAR SURVEYOR

 
The European Space Agency (ESA) is preparing for a November 20 launch of its “Gaia” 
space observatory, designed for a five-year mission to map and study one billion stars in the 
Milky Way Galaxy. Gaia will be launched from Europe’s spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana, 
on the South American coast.

 Gaia’s main goal is to create a highly accurate 3D map of our Milky Way Galaxy by repeatedly 
observing a billion stars to determine their positions in space and their movement through it.

 Other measurements will assess the vital physical properties of each star, including 
temperature, luminosity and composition. The resulting census will give astronomers an 
unprecedented new database for determining the origin and the evolution of our galaxy.

 Gaia, named for the goddess of the Earth in Greek mythology, will map the stars from an 
orbit around the Sun, near a location some 600,000 miles beyond Earth’s orbit known as the 
L2 Lagrangian point. The gravitational forces at a Lagrangian point act to keep an object in a 
stable position relative to the Earth and Sun.

 The spacecraft will spin slowly, sweeping its two telescopes across the entire sky and focusing 
their light simultaneously onto a single digital camera, the largest ever flown in space—it has 
nearly a billion pixels.

 For the last two months Gaia has been rigorously tested in Kourou as part of the launch 
campaign. The Kouru site is particularly suitable as a location for a spaceport as it is quite 
close to the equator, so that the spinning earth can impart extra velocity to rockets as they are 
launched eastward.

 “Getting ready for launch is an extremely busy phase for the mission teams, but it’s also 
extremely exciting and rewarding to see our mission so close to launch,” says Giuseppe Sarri, 
ESA’s Gaia project manager.

 Earlier this month the spacecraft’s sunshield passed the final deployment test in the 
cleanroom in Kourou. It has now been stowed in its final configuration ready for the launch. 
Shortly after launch, the sunshield will be deployed, forming a 35-foot-wide “skirt” around 
Gaia’s base.

 The shield has two purposes: to shade Gaia’s sensitive telescopes and cameras from sunlight, allowing them to cool to their operating temperature of -110°C, and to provide power to operate the spacecraft. 
The Sun-facing side of the shield is partially covered with solar panels to generate electricity.

 “With this important milestone—and others—now completed, we are working through an intensive checklist of final activities that will culminate in the much-awaited launch of our ‘discovery machine’,” 
adds Sarri.

 In the first week of November, the spacecraft will be mounted on the Soyuz launcher adapter and then integrated with the upper stage, which will eventually help boost Gaia onto its journey to L2. The 
Soyuz fairing—the nose cone that protects the sensitive spacecraft during the first four minutes of launch—will then be added.

 On 15 November, Gaia will be moved to the launch pad for integration with the Soyuz launcher itself. Finally, the rocket will be fuelled. Gaia’s launch time is set for November 20 at 08:57:30 GMT, and will 
be streamed live on the ESA Portal at http://www.esa.int

 “Our quest to create an enormous stellar census to solve questions on the origin, structure and evolutionary history of our home galaxy, and to discover tens of thousands of supernovas, previously unseen 
asteroids and even planets around nearby stars, is finally about to begin,” says Timo Prusti, ESA’s Gaia project scientist.

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

BUSINESS NEWS & TRENDS


CRUNCHING THE NUMBERS


HOW TO TARGET A POST ON FACEBOOK

Did you know you can target a post on a Facebook page by gender, relationship 
status, education status, interest level, age, location and language spoken? 

Before you can do this, you need to make sure something called “Post Privacy 
Gating” is turned on in your page’s Admin settings. Here’s what you do: 

Step 1: Go into your page’s Admin panel. Select “Edit Settings,” under the Edit Page button.

Step 2: Go to “Post Privacy Gating” and check the box that says, “Allow me to control the privacy of 
new posts I make on my Page.”

Step 3: Make a post on your page. The “target” will now show up in your publisher. Click on the small 
target icon in the lower left.

Step 4: 

Select “Add Target” and choose the category. 

About MJ: MJ and her brother David own HUTdogs, a creative services business that specializes 
in Internet Marketing strategies. They are known for providing valuable information at their Social 
Media and Email Marketing classes. “Like” them on Facebook for trending news in social media, 
internet marketing and other helpful tips, www.facebook.com/hutdogs.

Sign up for their upcoming classes and presentations at: www.hutdogs.com/workshops/schedule 

You recently read here about formulating your offer based on the information included in a CMA 
(Comparative Market Analysis). You can fine-tune that offer by applying current market trends. 
Trends may vary by region, state, city, and even the neighborhood, so do your homework.

You and your agent can study a lot of available statistics - the CMA, local listings’ DOM (Days on 
Market), and list to sale price ratios. The CMA compares similar properties, while the DOM figure 
gives you an idea of whether you’re looking at a buyer’s market or a seller’s market (in which you’ll 
have more competition and less negotiating power). If possible, look at DOM for listings within a 
mile of the home you want to purchase - it’s that area-specific.

Let’s move on to the average “List Price to Sales Price Ratio” (LP:SP). Like it sounds, it’s simply a 
percentage based on how closely the final sales price corresponds to the price at which the home was 
listed. A house that sells for the asking price has an LP:SP ratio of 100%. So a house that lists for 
$175,000 but sells for $160,000 has an LP:SP of 91%.

Look at the these ratios for the homes on the CMA that most closely match yours, and you’ll have a 
sound basis for what percentage of the list price to offer.

BUSINESS TODAY

The latest on Business News, Trends and Techniques


By La Quetta M. Shamblee, MBA

JOB TITLES & HIGH-PAYING POSITIONS DON’T EQUATE WITH 
GOOD LEADERSHIP

Too often, the title of “leader” is 
applied to someone simply by 
virtue of the job title or formal 
position that they occupy in a 
group or organization. The real 
test of leadership is determined 
by how effective someone is in 
executing the role. We would 
never consider calling a horrible 
cook a chef, or referring to our 
tone deaf friend as a singer. Yet 
anyone who ends up in a position 
as a supervisor, manager or 
director is automatically thought 
of as a leader?

 Perhaps they are leaders, but are 
they effective. Seniority, nor a 
person’s position in the hierarchy 
of a company is an indication of 
their qualifications of effectiveness 
as a leader. It is often very difficult 
to determine whether someone in 
a high-paying position is a good 
leader, since the individuals who 
report to them are rarely willing 
to provide honest feedback – 
unless they are able to do it 
anonymously, without fear of 
repercussions if the feedback isn’t 
a positive review of their superior.

 Staff working on the front lines 
in an organization, are usually 
positioned to observe situations 
with consumers, the competition 
and other happenings that 
can provide feedback that is 
valuable, and sometimes critical 
to the leaders of an organization. 
Effective leaders understand 
the importance of creating and 
maintaining an environment 
where feedback from employees 
is encouraged. The problem 
arises when the feedback 
may indicate that some of the 
challenges experienced on the 
front lines may be a direct or 
indirect result of decisions made 
by the leadership.

 Leaders who are competent 
and confident in their roles are 
always open to input, even when 
it reflects that their decision-
making warrants improvement. 
Leaders who are incompetent and 
lack confidence treat unfavorable 
feedback as a personal attack. 
Unfortunately, this usually results 
in a “kill the messenger” approach 
that discourages staff from 
sharing information that has the 
potential to help the leader make 
decisions that would improve the 
organization.

 One of the most obvious clues 
about whether someone is an 
effective leader, is whether or 
not they have any followers. By 
followers, this does not mean 
employees who report to a 
supervisor or manager simply 
because of where they are 
positioned on the organizational 
chart. Some of the most effective 
leaders in organizations don’t 
occupy any supervisory or 
management positions. Followers 
migrate to leaders to get questions 
answered, and often these leaders 
are not the individuals with the 
positions or titles.

It’s Time to Reinvent YOU

Kevin Kruse, Contributor

Leadership has nothing to do 
with personal attributes. Say the 
word “leader” and most people 
thing of a domineering, take-
charge charismatic individual. 
We often think of icons from 
history like General Patton or 
President Lincoln. But leadership 
isn’t an adjective. We don’t need 
extroverted charismatic traits to 
practice leadership. And those 
with charisma don’t automatically 
lead.

Leadership isn’t management. 
This is the big one. Leadership 
and management are not 
synonymous. You have 15 people 
in your downline and P&L 
responsibility? Good for you, 
hopefully you are a good manager. 
Good management is needed. 
Managers need to plan, measure, 
monitor, coordinate, solve, hire, 
fire, and so many other things. 
Typically, managers manage 
things. Leaders lead people.

So, again, what is Leadership?

Let’s see how some of the most 
respected business thinkers of our 
time define leadership, and let’s 
consider what’s wrong with their 
definitions.