Polar icecap changes between 2004 and 2005. Image credit: NASA/JPL
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New data gathered by NASA’s QuikScat satellite has found that ice at the Arctic polar ice cap is disappearing rapidly. Just between 2004 and 2005, the spacecraft measured a loss of 14% of the perennial sea ice; ice that normally lasts all year round. This is an amount of ice measuring 720,000 square kilometers (280,000 square miles), an area the size of Texas. Scientists expect that the coverage of perennial sea ice will continue to decrease this year as well.

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Mission Specialist Heide Stefanyshyn-Piper. Image credit: NASA
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The astronauts of STS-115 spent a second day outside the International Space Station working to connect up the new P3/P4 truss element. During the 7-hour spacewalk Dan Burbank and Steve MacLean had to remove insulation covers and hundreds of bolts from the truss. The final test will come on Thursday, when the new electricity-generating solar panels are unfurled to their full 13.7-metre (45-foot) length. Once operating, the new panels will double the amount electricity available to the station. The third and final spacewalk will occur on Friday.

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First bright galaxies. Image credit: Hubble
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A new view from the Hubble Space Telescope shows some of the first bright galaxies to emerge in the Universe, appearing around 13 billion years ago, or 900 million years after the Big Bang. Galaxies like these weren’t visible 700 million years after the Big Bang, so smaller galaxies must have merged together quite rapidly for them to get large and bright. The discoveries were made in the Hubble Ultra Deep Field and the Great Observatory Origins Deep Survey Fields.

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Artist impression of MRO. Image credit: NASA/JPL
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NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter fired its main thrusters for 12.5 minutes on Monday, adjusting the spacecraft into its final orbit around the Red Planet. Its altitude now ranges between 250 kilometers (155 miles) to 316 kilometers (196 miles) above the Martian surface - its final science orbit. The spacecraft will still need to deploy the large antenna for the Shallow Subsurface Radar instrument, and remove the lens cap from the Compact Reconnaissance Imaging Spectrometer, which will map the surface of Mars for minerals.

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Nokia and Cingular announced that they are now releasing the Nokia E62 - a full keyboard device to provide an alternative to the Blackberry from RIM. This is a robust, sleek device built specifically for wireless email whose attractive price promises to take superior mobile email access beyond the executive suite and into the hands of the everyday wireless user.

The Nokia E62 device will be available exclusively from Cingular in the U.S. for as low as $149.99. Measuring barely half an inch thick, it features a full QWERTY keyboard with large backlit keys for easy typing, and a sizeable, high-resolution 16 million color screen measuring 320 x 240 pixels. Whether they’re business people or consumers, Nokia E62 device users will have a variety of popular secure email platforms from which to choose. These include Good Mobile Messaging, Cingular Xpress Mail, BlackBerry Connect, Mail for Exchange (direct push corporate email from Microsoft Exchange), the Nokia push solution via Intellisync Mobile Suite from Nokia, and standard clients such as POP3, IMAP and SMTP. In addition, the device includes a pre-loaded instant messaging application.

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