By BEN GOSE | THE CHRONICLE OF HIGHER EDUCATION
Dozens of colleges have started programs designed specifically to get black men enrolled and help them graduate.
Published: November 10, 2014 at 12:00AM
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The homebound Expedition 40/41 trio, consisting of Soyuz Commander Max Suraev and Flight Engineers Alexander Gerst and Wiseman, is counting down to its Nov. 9 departure inside the Soyuz TMA-13M spacecraft. They are packing gear to be returned home while they continue science and maintenance on the U.S. side of the International Space Station.
Back on Earth, the new Expedition 42/43 crew is getting ready for its launch to the space station from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on Nov. 23. Soyuz Commander Anton Shkaplerov will be joined by NASA astronaut Terry Virts and European Space Agency astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti aboard a Soyuz TMA-15M spacecraft to begin a 5-1/2 month mission aboard the orbital laboratory.
Space Station Blog.
Image Credit: NASA/Reid Wiseman via NASA http://ift.tt/1zAm7QT
Solar flares are powerful bursts of radiation. Harmful radiation from a flare cannot pass through Earth’s atmosphere to physically affect humans on the ground, however — when intense enough — they can disturb the atmosphere in the layer where GPS and communications signals travel.
This flare is classified as an M7.9-class flare. M-class flares are a tenth the size of the most intense flares, the X-class flares. The number provides more information about its strength. An M2 is twice as intense as an M1, an M3 is three times as intense, etc.
More information on NASA’s SDO Mission.
Image Credit: NASA/SDO via NASA http://ift.tt/1pqwcwv
Four recently-installed protective panels make up Orion’s Ogive. The Ogive reduces drag and acoustic load on the crew module, making it a smoother ride for the spacecraft. Pictured here, inside the Launch Abort System Facility at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, a crane brings the fourth and final Ogive panel closer for installation on Orion’s Launch Abort System.
The Ogive installation was one of the last pieces of the puzzle for Orion prior to its move to the launch pad on Nov. 10. There, it will be lifted and attached to the rocket for its December launch.
More on Orion.
Image Credit: NASA via NASA http://ift.tt/1y3NPRZ
This image shows the southern Appalachian Mountain range, along the border of Tennessee, North Carolina, and South Carolina, as fall color was turned to winter white. The natural-color image was acquired by the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite on the Suomi NPP satellite on Nov. 2, 2014.
Six inches of snow fell in Asheville, North Carolina, where snow usually doesn’t fall before Christmas. Higher in the mountains, near Gatlinburg, Tennessee, LeConte Lodge (elevation 6400 feet) reported 22 inches of snow and temperatures of 9 degrees Fahrenheit. In Columbia, South Carolina, measurable snow fell nine days earlier than ever recorded for that city.
More information.
Image Credit: NASA Earth Observatory via NASA http://ift.tt/1x3Hasz
By TAMAR LEWIN
A study found that colleges were allocating more than half their investments — and almost two-thirds of the largest endowments — to alternative strategies such as hedge funds and private equity.
Published: November 4, 2014 at 12:00AM
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NASA is carrying out its sixth consecutive year of Operation IceBridge research flights over Antarctica to study changes in the continent’s ice sheet, glaciers and sea ice. This year’s airborne campaign revisits a section of the Antarctic ice sheet that recently was found to be in irreversible decline.
IceBridge uses a suite of instruments that includes a laser altimeter, radar instruments, cameras, and a gravimeter, which is an instrument that detects small changes in gravity. These small changes reveal how much mass these glaciers have lost. Researchers plan to measure previously unsurveyed regions of Antarctica, such as the upper portions of Smith Glacier in West Antarctica, which is thinning faster than any other glaciers in the region. The mission also plans to collect data in portions of the Antarctic Peninsula, such as the Larsen C, George VI and Wilkins ice shelves and the glaciers that drain into them. The Antarctic Peninsula has been warming faster than the rest of the continent.
In addition to extending the data record of NASA’s Ice, Cloud and Land Elevation Satellite (ICESat), which stopped collecting data in 2009, IceBridge will also help set the stage for ICESat-2 by measuring ice the satellite will fly over.
> Operation IceBridge Antarctic 2014 Campaign
Image Credit: NASA/Michael Studinger via NASA http://ift.tt/1tzK9rQ
