A new study of Arctic sea ice, carried out as part of the International Polar Year, suggests that at the current pace of change, there may be no sea ice whatsoever during sumemrtime in that region by 2030 at the latest. Whilst reports of this sort are nothing new, previous estimates of ice-free Arctic summers had suggested a more likely date around 2100.
The research has emerged from studies carried out in the Canadian north by a team of scientists from 27 nations; far from being a short-term study, the readings and measurement of the changing ice levels were carried out across a time span of some 15 months, from June 2007.
Arctic Ocean
Whilst the loss of summer ice in the Arctic is worrying, the changes are having enormous spin-off effects in the region; a more diverse range of wildlife has been spotted in the Arctic, whilst the arrival of cyclonic winds can futher accelerate the change, by dumping snow and breaking up ice packs.
The final scheduled night launch of one of NASA’s space shuttles, Endeavour, was successfully completed at 4.14am EST today. The shuttle is carrying the final two main pieces of the International Space Station, which will finally be completed after almost 12 years under construction.
Barack Obama last week withdrew funding from the program set to replace the space shuttles, which are due to be decommissioned later in 2010, and so future launches of this type may well fall in the hands of commercial space companies. There are just 4 more shuttle launches planned before the fleet is retired.
The International Space Station is a collaboration of 16 nations, and has so far cost around 100 billion US dollars to assemble – the Obama administration has extended funding for this for another 5 years as compensation for the retraction of monies for the Orion capsule, which was to supersede the shuttles.
Five outstanding young communicators will be given the opportunity to present a prestigious Award Lecture at the British Science Festival. This year’s Festival will be held in Birmingham from 14-19 September.
The award categories are:
Joseph Lister Award – Social sciences
Isambard Kingdom Brunel Award – Engineering, technology and industry
Charles Lyell Award – Environmental sciences
Charles Darwin Award – Agricultural, biological and medical sciences
Lord Kelvin Award – Physical sciences and mathematics
Awards are given to professional scientists or engineers in the early stages of their career, who show outstanding skills in communication to a non-specialist audience.
NASA has extended the Cassini mission for a second time, with the exploration of the Saturn system now set to continue until 2017. Having arrived at Saturn in 2004, the Cassini craft was initially due to spend 4 years exploring Saturn and its moons, but the mission was then given the green light to continue until 2010.
The Cassini craft has sent back a vast array of information about Saturn and Titan in particular, with a wealth of incredible images to support the data – over 210,000 images have been collected to date. Although the cost of the extended mission is around $60 million per annum, the understanding of one of our Solar system’s most recognisable and impressive bodies is considered invaluable. http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/cassini/main/
Having already travelled some 2.6 billion miles on its 6 year journey to date, the spacecraft is considered to be in good enough shape to continue its mission for the foreseeable future.
Material World, BBC Radio 4’s weekly science show, is searching for the BBC’s Amateur Scientist of the Year.
The “So You Want to be a Scientist?” competition asks entrants to submit ideas for scientific experiments that they would like to conduct. Finalists will conduct the experiments in their spare time, at home, with help from professional scientists, between April and September 2010.
The competition is open to anyone who isn’t currently working as a scientist or studying science at university. A-level science students are eligible to apply.
New imagery released by NASA from the Hubble Space Telescope shows that Pluto is undergoing significant seasonal changes. Once considered a member of the Solar System’s 9 planets, Pluto has since been downgraded to a “dwarf planet”, yet its study remains of great interest.
In 2015, NASA’s New Horizons mission will perform the closest ever fly-by of Pluto, and it is hoped that a vastly more detailed picture of the body will be painted at that time. However, the images released this month already tell us much more about this fascinating world. Over the course of its 248 year seasonal cycle, Pluto undergoes many seasonal changes; in the last two decades, for example, the surface colour has become redder, whilst the atmosphere is brighter. These changes may be attributable to surface ice sublimating on one pole and refreezing at the other.
The images also reveal a very bright area which is rich in carbon monoxide frost – it is thought this particular area will be of great interest to the New Horizons probe as it approaches Pluto in the next 5 years. As with the recent Cassini mission to study Saturn and its moons, the forthcoming visit to Pluto will afford astronomers a wealth of new information about one of our Solar System’s most well known bodies. For now, researchers are fascinated with the new imagery, and it is expected that more findings will be published in due course.
The images are published in the March 2010 edition of the Astronomical Journal.
3 new stories have been added to the Intute hot topics service; these articles are written exclusively for Intute by David Bradley Science Writer.
This month’s features include:
Golden Cat http://www.intute.ac.uk/hottopics/2010/02/golden-cat/
This feature looks at the use of a gold complex in the synthesis of ethylene; this confers significant environmental benefits over the current method of cracking crude oil.
Black Hole http://www.intute.ac.uk/hottopics/2010/02/black-hole/
The furthest-known black hole was recently observed by astronomers using the Very Large Telescope (VLT) at the European Southern Observatory. The black hole resides in Sculptor, over 6 million light years from Earth.
It’s a feeling many of us experience when Christmas ends and January arrives – after the excitement of New Year, a familiar pattern of mild depression sets in. This has long been known as “January Blues”, or in more pronounced cases, “seasonal affective disorder”, where a lack of sunlight and shorter days can cause genuine feelings of discomfort in many people.
However, it would now appear that the Universe itself is suffering from a severe case; moreover, one from which it is not likely to get better. Researchers at the Australian National University recently undertook a calculation of the “entropy of the observable Universe”. Low levels of entropy are associated with a productive state, and the ability of the Universe to create and sustain life is optimised at a lower level. However, should that level increase (which the 2nd law of thermodynamics says it must), the Universe gradually becomes less efficient.
The startling news is that the Universe’s entropy level is a factor of 30 larger than previously thought. There are a number of contributory factors, but the main one is the effect of super-massive black holes. These can rapidly increase entropy levels and cause the Universe to become more disordered and less efficient.
In a worrying footnote, the team, led by Dr Charley Lineweaver, is now focusing on assessing just how close the Universe is to a state of “maximum entropy” … at which point everything and everyone will die in “an inevitable heat death”. January Blues indeed …
The full article is in press with the Astrophysical Journal, and you can read more on this story by visiting Science Daily.
Barack Obama today unveils sweeping changes to the structure of the US space programme. Perhaps the most dramatic of these is that the anticipated manned missions to the Moon, scheduled for the end of the decade, will no longer go ahead.
The revised programme is set to focus more on low-Earth orbit programmes and a five-year extension to capital funding for the International Space Station. Obama’s administration clearly see this as having more significant long-term opportunity than a return to the Moon; the last manned Moon landing occurred in December 1972 and there now appears to be little hope of a US-led return to the suface in the foreseeable future.
Obama’s administration are aiming to widen the future of space exploration by increasing opportunities to the commercial sector. That group would be given the chance to develop launch vehicles and have a greater say in the direction of the US space programme, which to date has very much come under the governance of NASA.
The Russian Space Agency is believed to retain interest in sending cosmonauts to the Moon within the next 20 years, whilst India and China have crash-landed probes onto the lunar surface in recent history – perhaps we will finally see non-US space explorers walking on the Moon in our lifetimes?
Intute holds a considerable number of resources related to Moon missions and space exploration – please follow the links below to discover more!
In celebration of Andy Murray’s historic victory at the Australian Open today, which makes him the first British man to reach two Grand Slam tennis finals in 70 years, Intute takes a look at the science behind the sport.
There are a number of aspects to consider when looking into this area. A key component of any tennis player is of course his/her physical make up, and the way the competitor’s body performs under the stresses and strains on court. A second aspect would focus on training, body development, stamina, and the development of hand-eye coordination, speed and strength necessary to master the game.
Aside from the player, there are numerous other areas of tennis in which physics and science can play a part – equipment manufacture and design, tennis ball physics, the way different surfaces react to the ball (speed, momentum, deceleration, bounce, spin …), and much more.
We invite you to browse a “smashing” range of Intute internet resources in these areas; the sites listed do “serve up” some fascinating studies!
