Dawn probe leaves Asteroid Vesta

A signal from the probe confirming that it had escaped the gravitational bounds of the 530km-wide rock was received by Nasa on Wednesday.

The spacecraft's ion engine is now pushing it on to an even bigger target in the belt of asteroids between Mars and Jupiter - the dwarf planet Ceres.

Dawn is expected to reach this 950km-wide body in early 2015.

Before departing on its long cruise to the new destination, the probe trained its camera system on Vesta's northern pole.

The pictures reveal mountains and craters that are being seen for the very first time. Only now, as Dawn heads away, has the Sun risen high enough in the sky to illuminate the highest latitudes.

Scientists are poring over the images to see what interpretation they can put on the terrain.

Vesta has the appearance of a punctured football - the result of two mighty impacts that removed huge volumes of rock from its southern pole.

These collisions sent shockwaves rippling across the asteroid, producing a deep system of troughs that extends around the object's equator.

Researchers have speculated that this disturbance might also be reflected in the features hitherto obscured at the northern pole.

However, Dawn's principal investigator Prof Chris Russell said a definitive statement on such matters would have to wait on a detailed assessment of the new pictures.

"We haven't got together to discuss it carefully yet," he told BBC News. "[The region] is not as jumbled as I had expected; it's more subtle than I had expected - but the people who are experts in this particular area do feel that there is an effect of the southern impact."
The Dawn mission has returned a great swathe of data to transform our understanding of Vesta.

Before the probe's arrival in July last year, the best views of the asteroid were some fuzzy pictures acquired by the Hubble Space Telescope.

Dawn studied in detail the pattern of minerals exposed at Vesta's surface and also mapped the diverse geological features shaping its terrain.

These observations have enabled scientists to elucidate a history for the colossal rock.

They now regard it as a unique body - the only remaining example of the original objects that came together to form the rocky planets, like Earth and Mars, some 4.6 billion years ago.

It is clear now that Vesta has a layered interior, with a metal-rich core that takes up some 18% of the body by mass.

All of the other objects like it at the Solar System's birth were either obliterated in the intense collisional environment that existed back then or were incorporated into successively larger aggregations of material that eventually produced the planets we recognise today.

Perhaps the stand-out discovery is the definitive association that can now be made between Vesta and the howardite-eucrite-diogenite, or HED, class of meteorites that regularly fall to Earth.

From telescopic observations, researchers had always suspected these meteorites came from Vesta. But the signatures of pyroxene - a mineral rich in iron and magnesium - in those meteorites have now been matched precisely with the mineral signatures spied in Vesta's surface by Dawn's instruments.

It is highly likely that much of the HED material was thrown off Vesta in those two big impacts at the southern pole.

"We have used those meteorites and their chemical analysis to tell a story about the formation of the Solar System and its evolution, and if that was wrong we'd have had a lot of explaining and new work to do. The fact that it is right, and we've confirmed it, is really very good. It makes our lives a lot simpler," said Prof Russell, who is affiliated to the University of California, Los Angeles.

Why biodiversity increases

Periods of the earth's warming are associated with an increase in biodiversity, according to a study published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. While this may sound like good news, the timescales involved cancel out any benefits they might experience from the rising temperatures.

The team behind the study, led by Dr Peter Mayhew at York University, examined the earth's geological history and fossil records using improved data sets that looked at patterns of marine invertebrate biodiversity over the last 540m years.

They found that biodiversity increases over periods of warming in the earth's climate with many new species emerging, although these are simultaneously accompanied by extinctions of existing species.

Mayhew said: "What seems to be happening is that when we get a warming, this coincides with an upward shift in biodiversity in groups of organisms. So it looks like warm periods are boosting the generation of new species and that's improving biodiversity. However a bit later, and when I say 'a bit', I mean several millions of years later, you get extinctions occurring."

"It's a kind of a mixed picture," he added." We get an improvement in diversity but we also get extinction in new groups. It's just that overall the origination tends to out-do the extinction so biodiversity improves, generally."

But Mayhew doesn't think this changes what we currently understand concerning the loss of species as a result of today's man-made global warming.

"I don't think that there is any good news here", says Mayhew. "If what we need for diversity to improve in these warm climates is time for those organisms to evolve, then that time is going to be much longer than the lifetime of the human race. The lifetime of a species tends to be 1-10m years in the record. So that's how long we can expect humans maybe to survive ... if we get a fair chance at life.

"But I'm afraid it's not good news in terms of what we might experience from global warming in the next few decades. Because obviously extinction can happen rapidly, but speciation [the generation of new species] can't happen rapidly. So unfortunately we're quite likely, simply because of the rate of climate change today, to see extinctions occurring. And we're unlikely to see the benefits that might go along with that, which is the generation of new species."

Therefore despite of the possibility that climate change sceptics might takes these latest findings to suggest that the current warming of the planet is a good thing, Mayhew is very clear about what should be taken away from this study.

"Probably warming is good for speciation. In fact there are a lot of ecological studies that have suggested that there is the potential for earth to support biodiversity may in fact be greater under a global warming scenario. The difficulty is that potential doesn't necessarily translate into reality and species have to exist in order to fulfil that potential.

"I follow the scientific consensus here. The scientific consensus is definitely that current global warming is going to lead to a loss of biodiversity and potentially quite a significant loss. I don't think there is any good data to say otherwise at the moment and most of the data we have is strongly in that direction." He pointed out, for example, that there are big concerns about what is happening in the coral reefs.

So while the study does give us an insight into what happened to species when the planet warmed millions of years ago, it doesn't contradict predictions of greater species extinctions due to current rates of climate change.

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No life on Mars: an eerie foretaste of Earth's future?

Between Knobel and Wien, south of the Aeolian Plain, to the west of the ditches of Cerberus, the mighty strata of Mount Sharp rise out of Gale Crater. None of these names have ever been spoken on Mars, where this photograph was taken by Nasa's Curiosity rover before it started its slow journey across the landscape this week. They are names given by humans, some in the official language of scientific nomenclature, Latin, others – like Mount Sharp – more pet names for vast and remote geographical features.

If the first vague images from Curiosity seemed pale beside science fiction fantasies of life on Mars, this high resolution (and colour-adjusted) picture of Mount Sharp is sublime and awe-inspiring. The 18th century writer Edmund Burke said the glorious horror of the sublime is evoked in us by phenomena that might threaten our existence. The immense cliffs, screes and gullies of this mountain vista, set in an atmosphere too weak to sustain humans, reveal a landscape of lifeless grandeur that surely inspires such mixed emotions. It is a marvellous place that eerily mirrors the most spectacular sights on earth, from the Grand Canyon to the Sahara.

It is easy to see from this picture why Nasa has chosen Mount Sharp as a destination for its most sophisticated robot explorer yet. Curiosity's job is to search for evidence that Mars could have once supported life. The exposed strata that can be seen here must contain, like rock strata on earth, a rich geological history of Mars. Evidence of ancient life-supporting conditions may be found here if anywhere.

Yet "rich" may not be the word. How much chance is there of even the tiniest fossil life form being encountered by Curosity? On Earth, the remote ancient rocks of places like the Burgess Shales in Canada contain weird forms such as the early Cambrian creepy-crawly Hallucigenia. Go for a walk nearly anywhere and you can find fossils of some kind. You don't have to look long, in other words, to find evidence of ancient life in Earth's rocks. Meanwhile in this desolate Martian landscape a machine sent by Earth's most ambitious life forms will pick over the pebbles in search of the merest trace of the possibility of life.

This picture is thrilling and it is terrifying. It is a mirror of Earth's rocky architecture if somehow our planet became lifeless.

Meanwhile on Earth, Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney was making the speech of his life as he launches his bid to run the world's most powerful democracy. "President Obama promised to begin to slow the rise of the oceans and heal the planet", he said. "My promise ... is to help you and your family."

And that's when the scientific magnificence of this photograph turns to dread. While we gaze in wonder at a dead planet, what is happening to the living one? The start of Curiosity's mission has coincided with a summer full of danger warnings for life on earth. Suddenly, debates and pseudo-debates about climate change are ancient history. The record melting of Arctic ice this summer points clearly to ice-free summers in the Arctic in the near future. Nasa itself, not long before its Mars mission touched down, discovered startling satellite evidence of an equally dramatic melting of the ice sheet on Greenland. Even former sceptics are accepting the reality and urgency of a change in the life of the Earth caused mainly by human activity.

Mars is a beautiful place, as this picture shows, but it is majestically dead. The universe appears to be full of places like that. What no one has so far found much trace of is a place like this: a planet that jumps with life. Earth is a miracle, quite possibly the greatest miracle in the entire cosmos. It is now proven beyond any reasonable doubt that we are playing dangerously with the very fabric of that miracle, endangering the biological balances of our amazing world. Endangering ourselves. In this picture we look on a dead world. Do those silent strata reveal the Martian past, or our future?

EXCLUSIVE-Amazon teams with Nokia, snubs Google for maps -sources

SAN FRANCISCO, Aug 30 (Reuters) - Amazon.com Inc's (AMZN.O) new Kindle Fire will have mapping services via a tie-up with Nokia Oyj (NOK1V.HE), according to two people familiar with the situation, filling a gap in the tablet's capabilities while snubbing Google Inc's popular service.

The world's largest Internet retailer, which says its nine-month old Kindle Fire now accounts for one in five U.S. tablet sales, has teamed up with Nokia on mapping, the two people told Reuters.

Amazon will release at least one new version of the Kindle Fire next Thursday.

Amazon will also add location capabilities to the new Kindle Fire, which requires either a GPS chip or a process known as WiFi triangulation, the people said on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak ahead of Thursday's launch event.

Mapping services, which are popular features on tablets, typically include street maps, information about local businesses and sometimes traffic status. They can also support navigation instructions and third-party applications that depend on location information, such as travel services.

Location capabilities mark the location of tablet and smart phone users.

Google Inc's (GOOG.O) Nexus 7 tablet, which competes directly with the Kindle Fire, comes with GPS receiver chips to support location and mapping functions.

The first Kindle Fire launched last year and at $199 costs half the price of the entry-level Apple Inc (AAPL.O) iPad, helping it rapidly gain consumer acceptance. On Thursday, Amazon said its Kindle Fires had completely sold out. [ID:nL2E8JU6CF]

Analysts say the 7-inch device helps drive sales of digital media such as ebooks and music, which in turn propels core retail growth for the company.

Amazon may unveil larger versions of the Fire on Thursday in Los Angeles, analysts and media say, which will compete more directly with the iPad.

Although the Kindle now runs on an early version of Google's Android, which Amazon developed into its own operating system, it does not integrate Google Maps into the device. That means users had to access Google Maps via a Web browser, or download map apps from third-party developers.

A Nokia spokesman declined to comment and an Amazon spokeswoman did not respond to requests for comment.

GOING NATIVE

Shares of the Internet retailer closed down 0.4 percent at $246.22 on Thursday, after hitting a record high of $250 earlier following the announcement that it had run out of Kindle Fires.

Cooperating with Nokia may help Amazon develop integrated, or "native," mapping functionality for the Kindle Fire without relying on Google Maps. Nokia is one of the world's largest mapping companies, through its 2007 acquisition of Navteq.

Apple took a similar step earlier this year, when it dropped Google Maps in favor of its own mapping features for its next mobile operating system, known as iOS 6. As part of the switch, Apple signed a global licensing deal with TomTom NV (TOM2.AS), another leading mapping company, for its map content and related information.

In July, Amazon agreed to buy mapping startup UpNext, which specializes in detailed 3D maps of cities and some sporting stadiums.




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Arctic Sea Ice Reaches Record Low With Weeks Left in Melting Season

Arctic sea ice is melting faster than climate models projected, already shrinking to a record minimum with several more weeks of this year’s melting season, according to scientists on both sides of the Atlantic.
“The sea ice area went below the sea ice area in 2007 around Aug. 20,” said Ola Johannessen , founding director of the Nansen Environmental and Remote Sensing Center, an independent non-profit research foundation affiliated with the University of Bergen, Norway, that conducts basic and applied environmental and climate research.
“In general, the ice area and extent has consistently decreased since 1960 and the reason is mainly the increase of CO2,” he said.
According to a report released today by U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center, Arctic sea ice area has shrunk to 1.58 million square miles, breaking the previous minimum of 1.61 million square miles, set in 2007.
What Will This Mean for the World?
With more water ice-free, the amount of shipping through the Northern Sea Route and the North West Passage, even directly across the Arctic Ocean, will increase, Johannessen said.
There could also be increased oil production, since the the Arctic holds 32 percent of the world’s untapped oil  and gas reserves. Russia has put its first oil rig in the Arctic into operation, but it became a target of environmentalists last week when Greenpeace activists scaled it in protest.
But according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center, the loss of sea is likely to accelerate global warming trends.
“We’re seeing a decline of roughly round 12 percent per decade, 60,000 square miles per year.  To give a sense of that, the average U.S. state size is about 30,000 square miles.  Which means we’re losing about losing an average state every two years in terms of average sea ice cover,” NSIDC research scientist Walt Meir told ABC News.
Arctic sea ice keeps the polar region cold and helps to moderate global climate. Over the past 30 years there has been a dramatic decrease in the thickness and extent of ice in the arctic.
“Melting of the Arctic is bad for climate change and fisheries,” Johannessen said.  Loss of sea ice will impact “ocean and weather patterns, and there will be increased teleconnection between high and low latitudes affecting the monsoon system in Asia and other parts of the world.”
Melt Also Self-Reinforcing
There’s no turning back, scientists agree.  Since sea ice is white, it reflects 80 percent of the sunlight hitting it back back into space; the less of it is the more heat the darker Arctic will absorb. Instead of reflecting 80 percent, it will absorb 90 percent of the sunlight,  which will accelerate the thaw, scientists say. Several studies have found the Arctic could be ice free by 2040 or sooner.
As the Arctic melts, the ocean around it becomes warmer, leading to more loss of sea ice, and therefore a rise in sea levels.  Scientists say this sea level rise is impossible to avoid.
The Arctic Ocean has been covered with ice for more than 2.5 million years. During interglacial periods like the current one, ice melts in the summer and thaws in the winter.  Arctic sea ice reaches its maximum seasonal extent in March and shrinks through spring and summer to a minimum extent in September.
“The Arctic sea ice cap was acting kind of like an air conditioner for the earth’s climate system, and keeping it cooler than it would have been without the ice, and now we’re starting to lose that, we’re starting to lose coolant from that air conditioner in a sense,” Meir said.  ”We’ve lost 40 percent of Arctic sea ice in the summertime, that’s effectively like taking everything east of the Mississippi, and a little bit west away.”
Throughout human civilization, this melting and freezing Arctic sea ice has been more or less consistent. However,what is being experienced now is unprecedented, scientists say.
“These climate systems are interconnected. These climate systems are not like Las Vegas: What happened in the Arctic does not stay in the Arctic,” Meir told ABC News.  ”As the Arctic warms, as the balance changes, it may affect things like average rainfall, we’ll have more droughts in some areas, some areas will have more rain. Heavier snowfalls in winter, there was a big ‘snowpocalypse’  in Washington, D.C., a couple of years ago, and there was some indication sea ice might have played a role in that.  It’s hard to pinpoint isolated events, but thing like that are things we will expect to see as the ice decreases.”


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