In shocker, Israel's Barak quits politics

Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak waves to media after a conference in Tel Aviv, Monday, Nov. 26, 2012. Barak shook up the Israeli political system Monday with the abrupt announcement that he is quitting politics and will not run in general elections in January. The defense minister made the surprise announcement even after polls showed his breakaway Independence Party gaining momentum after Israel's recent military offensive in the Gaza Strip. (AP Photo/Oded Balilty)

Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak waves to media after a conference in Tel Aviv, Monday, Nov. 26, 2012. Barak shook up the Israeli political system Monday with the abrupt announcement that he is quitting politics and will not run in general elections in January. The defense minister made the surprise announcement even after polls showed his breakaway Independence Party gaining momentum after Israel's recent military offensive in the Gaza Strip. (AP Photo/Oded Balilty)

Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak speaks to the media in Tel Aviv, Monday, Nov. 26, 2012. Barak shook up the Israeli political system Monday with the abrupt announcement that he is quitting politics and will not run in general elections in January. The defense minister made the surprise announcement even after polls showed his breakaway Independence Party gaining momentum after Israel's recent military offensive in the Gaza Strip. (AP Photo/Oded Balilty)

Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak speaks to the media in Tel Aviv, Monday, Nov. 26, 2012. Barak shook up the Israeli political system Monday with the abrupt announcement that he is quitting politics and will not run in general elections in January. The defense minister made the surprise announcement even after polls showed his breakaway Independence Party gaining momentum after Israel's recent military offensive in the Gaza Strip. (AP Photo/Oded Balilty)

Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak speaks to the media in Tel Aviv, Monday, Nov. 26, 2012. Barak shook up the Israeli political system Monday with the abrupt announcement that he is quitting politics and will not run in general elections in January. The defense minister made the surprise announcement even after polls showed his breakaway Independence Party gaining momentum after Israel's recent military offensive in the Gaza Strip. (AP Photo/Oded Balilty)

JERUSALEM (AP) ? Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak on Monday abruptly announced he was quitting politics, injecting new turmoil into the Israeli political system weeks ahead of general elections.

Barak, Israel's most-decorated soldier and one-time prime minister, said he would stay on in his current post until a new government is formed following the Jan. 22 balloting.

His resignation could mean the departure of the most moderating influence on hawkish Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who holds a wide lead in polls and is expected to easily win re-election. Barak, who heads a small centrist faction in parliament, often served as Netanyahu's unofficial envoy to Washington to smooth over differences with the Obama White House.

His impending departure comes at a key time for Israel, as the nation struggles to find its way in a region where the old order of Arab autocrats has been swept aside by the Arab Spring and the rise of Islamist political parties. Israel also faces a looming decision on whether to attack Iran's nuclear program, which the Jewish state fears is designed to develop atomic weapons ? a charge Tehran denies.

Less than a week ago, Barak led an eight-day military offensive against the Hamas militant group that rules the Gaza Strip. The fighting, aimed at ending rocket fire from the Palestinian territory. ended in a fragile truce.

"I didn't make this decision (to leave politics) without hesitating, but I made it wholeheartedly," he told a hastily arranged news conference, saying he had been wrestling with the decision for weeks.

He evaded repeated questions about whether he might agree to serve as a Cabinet minister in an upcoming government, leaving open the possibility that he might still retain an impact on Israeli politics. While most Cabinet ministers also hold parliamentary seats, they do not have to be elected lawmakers, and such appointments have been made in the past.

Barak, 70, made the surprise announcement even after polls showed his breakaway Independence Party gaining momentum after the Gaza campaign.

Despite the bump in the polls, Barak still could have found himself fighting for his political survival once election day rolls around. Surveys before the Gaza operation were unkind to his party, at times showing it polling too weakly to even send a single representative to parliament.

"I feel I have exhausted my political activity, which had never been an object of desire for me. There are many ways for me to serve the country, not just through politics," he said, adding that his decision was spurred in part by his desire to spend more time with his family.

Possible replacements include Vice Premier Moshe Yaalon, a former military chief, and Shaul Mofaz, a former military chief and defense minister, who now serves as chairman of the opposition Kadima Party.

Barak's political career was as turbulent as his 36-year military career was dazzling.

The former war hero and military chief of staff blazed into politics on the coattails of his mentor, Yitzhak Rabin, and had been viewed by many as his heir apparent. With a resume that includes commanding some of Israel's most daring hostage rescue operations and raids, Barak was elected prime minister from the centrist Labor Party in 1999 ? just four years after retiring from the military. Many Israelis hoped he would parlay what was seen as his sharp strategic mind and unorthodox methods on the battlefield into long-elusive accords with the Palestinians and Syria.

But the consensus-building so important in the political arena did not mesh well with the go-it-alone style that served him in the military. Political allies and foes alike considered Barak aloof and imperious, and others questioned whether he possessed the interpersonal skills necessary to negotiate elusive accords with Israel's enemies.

Disappointed with his performance, Israeli voters booted Barak out of the premier's office in record time ? less than two years ? after his government unraveled with the outbreak of a Palestinian uprising and the collapse of U.S.-sponsored peace talks.

Hard-liner Ariel Sharon trounced him in a 2001 election. Barak left behind a legacy of failed peacemaking with the Palestinians and Syria, despite unprecedented offers of sweeping territorial concessions, and a contentious decision to end Israel's 18-year military occupation of south Lebanon overnight, which created a vacuum quickly filled by the anti-Israel Hezbollah guerrilla group.

For six years, the onetime Labor leader kept himself busy with lucrative speaking engagements and business consulting, reportedly amassing millions and cementing his image as a politician out of touch with his constituents.

But Barak returned to politics in 2007, handily recapturing the Labor leadership and replacing civilian Defense Minister Amir Peretz, who led a much-criticized war in Lebanon the previous summer.

But while Israelis liked Barak as defense minister, they didn't want him as their prime minister, and his party, which had led Israel to independence and governed the nation for its first three decades, lost its public appeal. In the 2009 election that brought Netanyahu to power, Labor won an all-time low of 13 of parliament's 120 seats.

Barak's dovish base turned on him after he led Labor into Netanyahu's conservative government, accusing Barak of betraying the party's ideals by joining forces with a man who at the time did not even recognize the principle of a Palestinian state.

In January 2011, he bolted Labor to form a new party, Independence, which has largely failed to resonate with the public.

Israeli hard-liners disliked him, too, accusing him of undermining the West Bank settlement movement by holding up building approvals, clearing squatters from West Bank homes and encouraging Netanyahu to support a temporary settlement construction slowdown.

But if Barak was unpopular with the public, he retained his clout with Netanyahu, whom he commanded in an elite special operations unit. As the prime minister's point man with the United States, Barak was welcomed in Washington as a moderating influence on Netanyahu's hard line policies toward the Arab world and Iran's nuclear program.

That alliance saw some rocky times recently with reports the prime minister objected to Barak's newly moderate tone that Israel should defer to the U.S. in deciding whether to attack Iranian nuclear facilities.

But the two seemed to have patched up things, appearing to work harmoniously on the recent Gaza campaign.

In a statement Monday, Netanyahu said he "respected" Barak's decision.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2012-11-26-Israel-Politics/id-b0d5d7bd8f304849ab1bc6375f8fd531

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Congo rejects rebel demand for talks: spokesman

Looks like Jennie Garth isn't the only one dipping her toes back into the dating pool -- her estranged husband, Peter Facinelli, stepped out with a new lady on his arm on Thursday.The 38-year-old "Breaking Dawn - Part 2" star, who split from Jennie in March, was photographed having dinner and later holding hands with actress Jaimie Alexander, 28, in New York City on Thursday, ahead of Peter's "Twilight Saga" film screening.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/congo-rebels-advance-outskirts-goma-102957823.html

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After Hurricane Sandy, People Flock to Radio for Information ...

During the arrival and immediate aftermath of Hurricane Sandy last month, those with power looked to television, the Web and social media for information. But large numbers of people, particularly those in the hardest-hit areas, also turned to the radio.

Arbitron, the radio ratings service, will report on Monday that from 7 p.m. to midnight on Oct. 29, when the storm made landfall in New Jersey, an average of just more than a million people in the broader New York region were listening to the radio during any 15-minute period. That is up 70 percent from the same period the week before. (Besides the five boroughs of New York City, the metropolitan market includes five counties in New York, nine in New Jersey and part of one in Connecticut.)

The audience skyrocketed in coastal areas. Stamford and Norwalk, Conn., had a 367 percent increase during that period; in New Jersey, that figure was up 247 percent in Monmouth County, and up 195 percent in Middlesex, Somerset and Union counties. These numbers increased even though some stations, like WNYC and WINS, lost their AM frequencies yet continued to broadcast on FM.

In many areas, power was out for days, limiting access to televisions and computers. Joe Puglise, the manager of Clear Channel Communications? radio stations in New York, said that at his home in Monmouth County, which got power back last week, he tuned in on a transistor radio, and that his stations received similar reports from listeners across the region.

At WHTZ-FM, also known as Z100, Clear Channel?s popular Top 40 station, D.J.?s whose news reports are usually confined to Lady Gaga sightings took calls from listeners and spent long stretches disseminating information from the authorities. At Clear Channel?s building in TriBeCa, the studios had generator power but offices upstairs were dark.

?We haven?t had a situation like this in terms of response from listeners since 9/11,? Mr. Puglise said.

In some areas, the storm continued to dominate the airwaves well into last week, as Sean Ross, a radio analyst in New Jersey, noted in an online column for Billboard magazine about WJLK-FM, a Top 40 station on the Jersey Shore. On that station, the storm was a topic for news coverage, listener testimonials, even car dealer and supermarket ads.

The news reports on commercial music stations contrasts with the aftermath of the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, Mr. Ross said, when many stations simply turned their signals over to affiliated news stations. It also underscores radio?s local roots and accessibility in a time of media deluge.

?Radio,? Mr. Ross said, ?still has an authority that not every tweet has.?

Source: http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/11/18/after-hurricane-sandy-people-flock-to-radio-for-information/

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ECONOMY: Inland area improves but still struggling : Economy

Posted on | November 19, 2012 | Comments

Inland Southern California is still close to the bottom of the economic pile but at least the numbers are improving a little.

The third-quarter report from CredAbility, a national non-profit credit counseling service, found that in the third quarter the metropolitan area made up from Riverside and San Bernardino counties had the fourth-worst economic conditions of the 30 major metros it measures.

That?s not cheering news, but in the first quarter, CredAbility has the Inland Empire as the third-worst metro. In the most-recent quarter, the Inland area is better than the Orlando and Tampa-St. Petersburg areas of Florida and Las Vegas.

Detroit, Miami, Chicago, Los Angeles and Atlanta are among the cities with economies that are limping. The five healthiest metros in the third quarter were Washington, Minneapolis, Boston, Houston and Dallas-Fort Worth.

The Inland area?s reading was 60.81 in the third quarter, and it has gotten better in each of the last five quarters. For the record, 70 is considered the break-even point for having an economy that is not in distress.

CredAbility bases its study on employment, housing values, net worth, credit strength and the management of household budgets. Nationally the rating was 70.4, down a little from the second quarter but up sharply in the last 12 months.

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Source: http://blog.pe.com/economy/2012/11/19/economy-inland-area-improves-but-still-struggling/

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Medics: Israel strike kills 11 civilians in Gaza

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) ? An Israeli missile flattened a two-story house in a residential neighborhood of Gaza City on Sunday, killing at least 11 civilians, mostly women and children, Palestinian medical officials said, as Israel expanded a military offensive to target homes of wanted militants.

The attack, which Israel said targeted a militant, was the single deadliest incident of the five-day-old Israeli operation and hiked a toll Sunday that was already the highest number of civilians killed in one day, according to Gaza medics. The bloodshed is likely to raise international pressure for a cease-fire, with Egypt taking the leading role in mediating between Israel and Hamas.

President Barack Obama said he had been in touch with the leaders of Israel, Egypt, and Turkey in an effort to halt the fighting. "We're going to have to see what kind of progress we can make in the next 24, 36, 48 hours," he said.

Obama cautioned against a potential Israeli ground invasion into Gaza, warning it could only deepen its death toll. At the same time, he blamed Palestinian militants for starting the round of fighting by raining rockets onto Israel, and he defended Israel's right to defend itself.

"Israel has every right to expect that it does not have missiles fired into its territory," Obama said in Thailand at the start of a three-nation tour in Asia.

An Israeli envoy arrived in Cairo on Sunday and held talks with Egyptian officials on a ceasefire, according to Egyptian security officials and Nabil Shaath, a top aide of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas who was in the Egyptian capital.

But Israel and Gaza's militant Hamas rulers remain far apart on any terms for a halt in the bloodshed, which has killed 70 Palestinians ? including 36 civilians, according to Gaza health officials ? and three Israeli civilians.

Hamas is linking a truce deal to a complete lifting of the border blockade on Gaza imposed since Islamists seized the territory by force. Hamas also seeks Israeli guarantees to halt targeted killings of its leaders and military commanders. Israeli officials reject such demands. They say they are not interested in a "timeout," and want firm guarantees that militant rocket fire into Israel will finally end. Past ceasefires have been short lived.

As the offensive moved forward, Israel found itself at a crossroads ? on the cusp of launching a ground offensive into Gaza to strike an even tougher blow against Hamas, or pursuing Egyptian-led truce efforts.

"The Israeli military is prepared to significantly expand the operation," Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared at the start of the weekly Cabinet meeting.

At the same time, Gaza militants continued their barrage of rocket fire at Israel, firing more than 100, including two at Tel Aviv. More than 10 Israelis were injured by shrapnel, two moderately, according to police spokesman Mickey Rosenfeld. Israel's "Iron Dome" rocket-defense system shot down at least 30 rockets, including the ones aimed at Tel Aviv.

Israel's announcement Sunday that it was widening its campaign to target homes of militants appeared to mark a new and risky phase of the operation, given the likelihood of civilian casualties in the densely populated territory of 1.5 million Palestinians. Israel launched the offensive Wednesday in a bid to end months of intensifying rocket fire from the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip.

The day's deadliest strike hit the home of the Daloo family in Gaza City, reducing the structure to rubble.

Frantic rescuers pulled the bodies of several children from the ruins of the house, including a toddler and a 5-year-old, as survivors and bystanders screamed in grief. Later, the bodies of the children were laid out in the morgue of Gaza City's Shifa Hospital.

Among the 11 dead were four small children and five women, including an 80-year-old, Gaza health official Ashraf al-Kidra said.

In a statement, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said he was "deeply saddened" by the deaths of the civilians and "alarmed by the continuing firing of rockets against Israeli towns."

Israeli military spokesman Brig Gen. Yoav Mordechai told Channel 2 TV that the Israeli navy had targeted the building and killed a "global jihad" militant.

"The targets are exact," Mordechai said. "Every (Israeli) missile has an address."

He said the army would continue its operation "as if there were no (cease-fire) talks in Egypt."

The presence of a militant in the house could not be verified. Al-Kidra said the two adult men killed in the strike were civilians.

Sami Abu Zuhri, a Hamas spokesman, said that "the Israeli people will pay the price" for the killing of civilians. One of the rocket attacks targeting Tel Aviv came soon after the strike on the Daloo home.

More than a dozen homes of Hamas commanders or families linked to Hamas were struck on Sunday. Though most were empty ? their inhabitants having fled to shelter ? at least three still had families in them. Al-Kidra said 19 of the 24 people killed Sunday were civilians, mostly women and children.

Israeli Vice Premier Moshe Yaalon said civilian casualties are inevitable.

"You can't avoid collateral damage if they position the rockets in densely populated areas, in mosques, school yards. We shouldn't be blamed for the outcome," he said.

Israel also struck two high-rise buildings housing media outlets, damaging the top floor offices of the Hamas TV station, Al Aqsa, and a Lebanese-based broadcaster, Al Quds TV, seen as sympathetic to the Islamists. Six Palestinian journalists were wounded, including one who lost a leg, a Gaza press association said.

Foreign broadcasters, including British, German and Italian TV outlets, also had offices in the high-rises.

Two missiles made a direct hit on Al Aqsa TV's 15th floor offices, said Bassem Madhoun, an employee of Dubai TV, which has offices in the same building.

Building windows were blown out and glass shards and debris were scattered on the street below. Some of the journalists who had been inside the building at the time took cover in the entrance hallway.

Lt. Col. Avital Leibovich, an Israeli military spokeswoman, said the strikes targeted Hamas communications equipment on the buildings' rooftops. She accused the group of using journalists as "human shields," and urged journalists to stay clear of Hamas bases and facilities.

The repeated militant rocket fire on Tel Aviv and a volley fired Friday toward Jerusalem have significantly escalated the hostilities by widening the militants' rocket range and putting 3.5 million Israelis, or half the country's population, within reach. The attempt to strike Jerusalem also has symbolic resonance because both Israel and the Palestinians claim the holy city for a capital.

Israeli radio stations repeatedly interrupted their broadcasts to air "Code Red" alerts warning of impending rocket strikes. In the southern city of Ashkelon, rocket fire damaged a residential building, punching a hole in the ceiling and riddling the facade with shrapnel.

With fighting showing no signs of slowing, international attempts to broker a ceasefire continued.

Nabil Shaath, an aide to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas who was in Cairo, confirmed that the Israeli envoy had arrived in Egypt for talks, saying there are "serious attempts to reach a ceasefire." There was no immediate Israeli confirmation.

Hamas' prime minister, Ismail Haniyeh, spoke to Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi. He told the Egyptian leader he supports such efforts, provided Hamas receives "guarantees that will prevent any future aggression" by Israel, his office said in a statement.

Morsi over the weekend hosted talks with Hamas' supreme leader, as well as leaders from Hamas allies Turkey and Qatar. He also held contacts with Western leaders.

French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius visited Israel on Sunday to offer his country's help toward forging an "immediate ceasefire," the French government said.

Meeting with Fabius, Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman thanked him for "France's efforts to prevent casualties" but said "the moment that all the terror organizations announce a ceasefire, we can consider all the ideas that French foreign minister and other friends are raising."

___

Aron Heller contributed reporting from Beersheba.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/medics-israel-strike-kills-11-civilians-gaza-180240393.html

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Ten Powerful Employee Engagement Lessons | Switch and Shift

We have one final post to wrap up our series, ?Winning Employees through Engagement.? We are delighted that Vala Afshar rounds out our series on this topic. As an executive for his company who has been named one of the top places to work, Vala brings insights we all can learn from and apply. What we love about Vala?s post is that it?s immediately applicable. As engagement should be. It?s not rocket science. It?s human nature. (Perhaps harder than rocket science?)

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I am very proud of our company. We have had incredible success with more than three years of consecutive topline revenue growth. We have also received numerous industry awards for our innovative products and services. But what I am most proud of is that the Boston Business Journal and the Boston Globe have both recognized our company as one of the ?best places to work? in the Boston area in 2012. Our industry-best employee retention is one of the principle drivers of our company?s success, and from a CMO and Chief Customer Officer perspective, it is clear that customers want to do business with companies that have passionate, committed, and engaged employees.

In business, winning is a team sport. Building a team that is engaged and committed starts with a mindset that celebrates collaboration. Here are ten building blocks towards developing a culture of engagement:

1. Articulate the ?why?

?If you hire people just because they can do a job, they?ll work for your money. But if you hire people who believe what you believe, they?ll work for you with blood and sweat and tears.? ? @SimonSinek. Employees are engaged when they understand the purpose behind direction and destination. Share with employees where you?re going and why.

2. Work without purpose is just a job

Every employee must be given the opportunity to understand and embrace your organization and company mission. Every employee must feel as though they are helping the team achieve the collective goal. Managers must frequently and purposefully communicate direction and destination. Communication creates a culture of engagement.

3. ?What do you think??

What are the eight words that managers can use to engage employees? Tom Peters brilliantly said the eight words are: ?What do you think?? And ?How can I help?? Managers, please ask these questions daily.

4. Listen loudly

There is a difference between hearing and listening. Listening is a sign of respect. Give your undivided attention to your employees. There is no engagement without respect.

5. Cultivate collaboration in a safe environment

Demonstrate to your employees that you celebrate the questions more than the answers. In a safe environment, employees are more willing to teach and be taught and to take calculated risks.

6. Leadership is about positioning

In time of celebration, lead from the back. In time of crisis, lead from the front. Humble leaders position themselves towards success. The more credit you give, the greater the opportunity for employee engagement.

7. Remove your door

Nothing of significance was ever achieved in a manager?s office. The game is played on the outside, so implement a ?no door? policy and get in the game.

8. Indifference is unacceptable

?The day soldiers stop bringing you their problems is the day you have stopped leading them.? ? Colin Powell. You can?t be engaged unless you are accessible. Encourage feedback and be conscious of silence. Indifference is awfully quiet.

9. Respect failure, but don?t fear it

It is harder to engage when you are afraid to fail. Fail forward, fail fast and learn along the way. Most importantly, as a manager, if you make a mistake, admit it publically. Engagement cannot thrive in an atmosphere that demands perfection.

10. Break bread

Invite employees from other departments, and your own, to lunch or breakfast. Learn about what people do to make your company great. Be interested and make connections. Interest alone isn?t enough. Learn to connect authentically.

In summary, no involvement means no commitment; no exception. So remember to engage employees because together is better. Together is how we win.

Connect with Vala

Vala Afshar is Chief Marketing Office and Chief Customer Officer for Enterasys Networks, a Siemens Enterprise Communications Company. Afshar is responsible for worldwide services operations and technical support functions including contact center operations, field engineering, support engineering and infrastructure technologies. Afshar and his team have successfully implemented an award winning cloud computing and social collaboration customer relationship management framework that enables Enterasys to achieve best-in-class customer satisfaction and employee retention. Enterasys? strong technical service and support capability is recognized globally by customers, partners and industry analysts as a true company differentiator.

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Graphic by Shawn Murphy

Source: http://switchandshift.com/ten-powerful-employee-engagement-lessons?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=ten-powerful-employee-engagement-lessons

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European Exoplanet-Hunting Space Telescope Nears Its End

The French-led mission that discovered the first rocky extrasolar planet is on its last legs

By Eric Hand and Nature magazine

CoRoT's discoveries include a new class of exoplanet and a pulsation in red giant stars that can be used to understand their interiors. Image: CNES/D.Ducros

A pioneering European space telescope that discovered the first rocky extrasolar planet is on its last legs, Nature has learned.

According to the French space agency CNES, the Convection, Rotation and Planetary Transits (CoRoT) satellite suffered a computer failure on 2 November. While the spacecraft is still functioning, it can no longer retrieve data from its 30-centimeter telescope, which spots exoplanets by looking for transits ? a dimming in brightness as the planet crosses its host star.

?To be frank, I think the problem is serious,? says Fabienne Casoli, the director of space science and exploration at CNES headquarters in Paris.

Launched in 2006, CoRoT set about monitoring thousands of stars. The mission survived its first computer failure in 2009 by relying completely on a second, redundant unit. Casoli says the team has tried several times to reboot the second computer to no avail. The engineering team hasn?t given up on a rescue, and, sometime in December, it will try and reboot the first computer using an alternate power chain. ?For the time being, we don?t give up,? she says. ?But it is one of the last things we can do.?

In the meantime, Malcolm Fridlund, the project scientist from the European Space Agency, says he?s got plenty of data to work with. He?s preparing a paper that will describe five new exoplanets, bringing the mission?s confirmed count to 31. And there are some 200 candidate exoplanets that remain unconfirmed. ?You have to be grateful for what you have,? says Fridlund, who points out that CoRoT had already doubled its three-year design life, and was about to embark on another extension. ?It has done what it was designed for and you can?t ask more from a spacecraft.?

As it stands, CoRoT was the first space mission to discover new planets using the transit technique. With its small mirror, it was never a match for the much bigger (and more expensive) 0.95-meter Kepler space telescope, a NASA mission that launched in 2009 and, at latest count, has discovered some 3,000 candidate planets (see ?The exoplanet next door?).

But Ronald Gilliland, a Kepler co-investigator at the Pennsylvania State University in State College, says that CoRoT will be judged an ?excellent success? for at least two reasons. First, it found that red giant stars oscillated in a way that theorists hadn?t expected, giving astronomers new insight into the structure and evolution of the aging stars. Second, it found CoRoT-7b, the first rocky planet, 1.7 times the diameter of Earth ? the first in a whole new category of exoplanets called super-Earths. ?It beat the Kepler mission to the punch, so to say, in a few areas,? says Gilliland.

Flying in a 900-kilometer polar orbit, CoRoT has to cope with relatively high doses of radiation and seesawing temperatures at it repeatedly crosses in and out of Earth's shadow. By contrast, the Kepler mission has drifted far from Earth in its own separate orbit around the Sun, a far cleaner radiation environment. Yet it, too, has started to show its age. In July, the Kepler team reported the failure of one of the spacecraft?s four reaction wheels, used to keep the telescope pointed on a fixed region of the sky. On 14 November, NASA announced the end of Kepler?s 3.5-year prime mission, and the start of an extension that could last four years. It will need its three remaining reaction wheels to survive for all of that time in order for the mission to reach a major goal: an Earth-twin orbiting in the habitable zone.

?The reaction wheels are the big worry,? says Gilliland.

This article is reproduced with permission from the magazine Nature. The article was first published on November 16, 2012.

Source: http://rss.sciam.com/click.phdo?i=4ebaa29e195d9285dd75ce1c1ad20453

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