The latest "stupid animal tricks" video to go viral shows an elephant at a Thai nature park nabbing a woman's smartphone and swallowing it down, followed by the recovery of the phone when it's heard ringing from a pile of elephant dung. Is it fake or real?

There are the usual signs of a hoax — including the incredibly low quality of the video, and the staginess of the reactions to the loss of the phone and its unappetizing rediscovery. But beyond that, there are the scientific questions: Do elephants really go for foreign objects like phones? How long does it take for something to make its way from one end of the elephant to the other? Would a smartphone still work after passing all the way through?

For answers, we went to Murray E. Fowler, professor emeritus at the UC-Davis School of Veterinary Medicine and co-editor of a textbook titled "Biology, Medicine and Surgery of Elephants." It turns out that Fowler has some personal experience with the ins and outs of elephant feeding habits.

He recalled a time when he drove a van full of students to a zoo, put the key in the pocket of his coveralls, and then paid an up-close visit to one of the elephants. When it came time to get back in the van ... no key. Fowler had to retrieve a spare from the school. "About four days later, they found the key in a stool sample from the elephant," Fowler said. He figures the elephant must have snagged the key out of his coveralls, or picked it up where he dropped it.

Based on that experience, plus Fowler's professional knowledge of an elephant's innards, he says it's possible that the animal could take an iPhone and swallow it. "I can verify that," Fowler said. But you couldn't expect to recover the phone from the poop on the same day. On the contrary: Experts say it takes between 18 hours and several days for an elephant's alimentary canal to do its work. (Fun fact: Elephants digest and absorb only 44 percent of what they eat.)

If that's the case, the woman would have to come back later to pick up her lost item, presumably after it has been found and cleaned up. Moreover, it's highly questionable whether the darn thing would work after all that time — and not just because the battery ran down. "There'll be acids and various and sundry enzymatic situations," Fowler said.

Bottom line? Even if you presume that the video is not a hoax from start to finish, the idea that you could recover a working mobile phone after it's worked its way through the digestive tract smells fishy ... or in this case, elephant-y. To me, the mere idea of sticking the phone into the dung so that you can pull it out for the sake of a YouTube video is creepy enough. But what do you think?

Update for 1:30 p.m. ET Jan. 2: Bruce Schulte, a biologist at Western Kentucky University who serves as an adviser to the International Elephant Foundation, weighed in on the matter in an email:

"My guess is the video is a scam. I communicated with a colleague of mine, Heidi Riddle, who has worked with elephants for decades to corroborate my impression. The Metro Washington Park Zoo (now The Oregon Zoo) once had elephants ingest a very small thermometer in a protective case to track temperature changes of females related to estrus.  The elephants were trained to find the device after it was excreted. Eleven to 46 hours is the typical transit time, and about a day is commonly used as the estimate. Variability in transit rate is common in mammals (see Clauss et al. 2007 Oikos), so the range you mention is reasonable, depending on forage type, species, age, etc.  It is unlikely that a mobile phone would be ingested, and if so, that it would handle the environment of a digestive tract and remain functional."

More stupid video tricks:

• That kid-snatching eagle video? Fake!
• There's something fishy about mammoth video
• Siberian snow job: 'Dead alien' video is a hoax
• UFO video shot over South Korea: Fact or fake?

Hat tip to Gizmodo / DVICE / Ubergizmo. While you're thinking, here's a better-produced "Elephant-Meets-Smartphone" video.

Alan Boyle is NBCNews.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter and adding the Cosmic Log page to your Google+ presence. To keep up with Cosmic Log as well as NBCNews.com's other stories about science and space, sign up for the Tech & Science newsletter, delivered to your email in-box every weekday. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.

Francois Nascimbeni / AFP - Getty Images

French researcher Gerard Liger-Belair works on a glass of champagne in his laboratory in Reims, located in the Champagne region in eastern France.

If you really want to impress your bubbly-sipping friends tonight, be sure to chill a big bottle of Champagne to somewhere between 39 and 50 degrees Fahrenheit (4 to 9 degrees Celsius), bring out the narrow glasses (not those wide plastic cups!) and pour the stuff gently down the angled side of the glass like beer.

This is the scientific way to treat Champagne sparkling wine, based on research conducted over the years by Gerard Liger-Belair, a physicist at the University of Reims in France's Champagne region. His studies on the behavior of bubbly — including high-speed photography of popping bubbles and infrared imaging of carbon dioxide flow — have made him the world's highest-profile expert on Champagne science.

It's a tough job — but somebody's gotta do it.

"I love the beauties behind bubble science," Liger-Belair said in an email. "Since I became a scientist, many people have remarked that I seem to have landed the best job in all of physics, since my research on bubbles requires that I work in a lab stocked with top-notch Champagne — and I'd be inclined to agree."

For Liger-Belair and his colleagues, it's mostly about the bubbles. To be sure, there's much more to sparkling wine than the sparkle: As many as 80 different vintages of wine may be blended together to create one batch of Champagne using the traditional process. A small amount of yeast and sugar is added, and the bottles are sealed up for fermentation. Months later, the yeast sediment is blown out through the bottle's neck — and then the bottle is quickly corked up and wired shut.

Liger-Belair's research focuses on what happens next, when the cork is popped off. The CO2 that was created through the fermentation process bubbles out of the wine — tickling the nose with a fizzy aerosol of alcohol and flavorful ingredients known as volatile organic compounds. The more CO2 that can be liberated after the champagne is poured into the glass, the better.

That's where science comes into play. Liger-Belair and his colleagues recently reported that larger bottles of Champagne retain more CO2 in the wine as it's being poured into the glasses. So if you have a choice between several small bottles and fewer big bottles, go for the big ones. But be sure those bottles are well-chilled: Warm champagne loses its CO2 quickly as it's being poured, leaving less to fizz up out of the glass.

Speaking of the glass: Liger-Belair's team determined that tall, narrow-rimmed flutes produce a better effect than the wide-rimmed "coupes" that folks more typically associate with sparkling wine. That's because the CO2 rises out of a wide-rimmed glass too quickly, over a wider surface area. Also, glass flutes are better than plastic cups, and not just for aesthetic reasons: The plastic material is hydrophobic — that is, liquid-repellent — which means the bubbles are more likely to adhere to the sides of the cup and less likely to contribute to a nice fizz.

If you really want to get your fizz on, wash your glasses before the party and dry them with a towel rather than letting them air-dry: The microscopic fibers of cellulose that are left inside the glass actually contribute to bubble production. Some glass-makers add tiny scratches to their Champagne glasses to create pleasing patterns of bubbles, and you can feel free to experiment with the same technique. (Just not with the expensive glassware.)

When it comes to the pouring, don't splash the Champagne straight down into the bottom of the glass. Instead, trickle it down the side, like beer. That preserves more of the carbon dioxide for the bubbles that rise while you're drinking the wine. "The beer-like way of serving champagne much less impacts its dissolved CO2 concentration than the Champagne-like way of serving it, and especially at low Champagne temperatures (4 degrees C and 12 degrees C)," Liger-Belair reported.

Liger-Belair has laid out many more findings about Champagne in a decade's worth of research papers — and in his book, "Uncorked: The Science of Champagne," which is being updated with the latest revelations for a new edition. One of his recent papers, an 88-page survey written for the European Physical Journal, is available for free download today.

Here's a sampling of sparkling facts: 

• There are six bottles' worth of gaseous CO2 packed into every bottle of Champagne.
• A significant amount of that CO2 leaks out of the bottle through the cork. Liger-Belair's study of Champagne bottled in the 1990s suggested that almost a third of the CO2 could be lost over the course of 15 years. "Because the size of bubbles is linked with the level of dissolved CO2 in Champagne, bubbles get thinner over time when Champagne ages," Liger-Belair said.
• The higher the wine's temperature, the bigger the "pop" when the cork is released. That's because the CO2 pressure increases with temperature. Some folks might keep their Champagne warm to maximize the pop, but be careful: A popped cork can travel as fast as 50 mph (80 kilometers per hour). Every year, the American Academy of Opthalmology warns that sparkling-wine corks rank among the top holiday-related eye hazards — and provides tips for proper cork removal.
• Only 5 percent of the pop goes toward the cork's kinetic energy. Most of the rest goes toward generating the popping sound's shock wave. The pattern of CO2 that's set loose when the cork is popped is similar to the mushroom cloud created by an exploding atom bomb.
• If you see a white wisp of mist rising from a just-popped bottle, that's not carbon dioxide. That's a fog of ethanol and water vapor, triggered by the sudden drop in gas temperature when the pressure is released. (That's what's known as adiabatic expansion.) 

It might seem frivolous to devote so much attention to the physics of fizz, but Liger-Belair said his research is about much more than your single bottle of bubbly on New Year's Eve.

"In fact, bubbles are a fantastic example of bubble dynamics in general, and studies dealing with champagne bubbles can be extended to many other areas where bubbles play a role, in natural as well as industrial processes. For example, marine aerosols created by bursting bubbles behave like champagne's bursting bubbles. ... The scales are different, but the basic principles are identical," he said in his email.

Liger-Belair's research at the University of Reims is generally funded by enological and agricultural programs in France and Europe — such as L'Association Recherche Oenologique Champagne et Universit

é, which was created to boost the Champagne region's best-known industr

y.

"As far as champagne is concerned, 350 million bottles sold per year all over the world deserve particular attention. The job may seem fun indeed, as any job made with passion should be," Liger-Belair said. "I am aware that devoting so much energy to studying champagne bubbles may seem 'weird,' but the implications of bubble dynamics are universal."

So just before you take a sip of cool, sparkling beverage from your towel-dried flute, raise a toast to Liger-Belair ... and the science of champagne.

Update for 12:45 p.m. ET: Legend has it that the wide-rimmed, bowl-like champagne coupe was modeled after the breast of Marie Antoinette (or the Empress Josephine, or Helen of Troy ...), but Snopes.com says there's no truth to the legend. 

More about the science of alcoholic drinks:

• Sip some New Year's Eve science
• How to pour that drink, scientifically
• The why behind a wine's bouquet
• Future happy hour with high-tech cocktails

Alan Boyle is NBCNews.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter and adding the Cosmic Log page to your Google+ presence. To keep up with Cosmic Log as well as NBCNews.com's other stories about science and space, sign up for the Tech & Science newsletter, delivered to your email in-box every weekday. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.

The brother of first moonwalker Neil Armstrong says in a new BBC documentary that the phrase accompanying humanity's first footprint on the moon — "that's one small step for (a) man, one giant leap for mankind" — was not a spur-of-the-moment improvisation but a speech that was written out and practiced in advance.

In a rare interview, Dean Armstrong recalled that his brother slipped him the words — including the long-disputed reference to "a man" — on a piece of paper as they played a game of Risk, weeks before the Apollo 11 launch in July 1969.

"He says, 'What do you think about that?' I said 'fabulous.' He said 'I thought you might like that, but I wanted you to read it,'" Dean Armstrong is quoted as saying in a Telegraph report on the documentary, titled "Neil Armstrong: First Man on the Moon." The show premiered tonight on BBC Two.

The genesis of one of history's most famous phrases has long been shrouded in mystery: In his definitive history of the Apollo moon effort, "A Man on the Moon," Andrew Chaikin noted that as the mission neared, Neil Armstrong was inundated with suggestions for his speech, including passages from the Bible and from Shakespeare.

Chaikin implied that Armstrong was undecided about what he'd say until after Apollo 11's Eagle lunar lander had set down on Tranquility Base: "Now, on the moon, Armstrong knew he could delay no longer. As he thought about the first step he would take from Eagle's footpad he pondered the inherent paradox — a small step, yet a significant one — and he knew what he would say."

Slideshow: Neil Armstrong: 1930-2012

NASA / EPA

See images from the career of astronaut and American hero Neil Armstrong.

Launch slideshow

Dean Armstrong's recollection suggests that his astronaut brother, who died in August at the age of 82, scripted the words early on but held them close to the vest. The BBC documentary's director, Christopher Riley, speculated that Armstrong let people think the words came to him spontaneously to head off any outside tinkering in advance, or any second-guessing in retrospect.

The interview also confirms that Neil Armstrong meant to say "one small step for a man" — even though the "a" wasn't audible in the transmission from the moon. That's an important stylistic point, because the "a" draws a contrast between the physical length of a human's footstep and Apollo 11's "giant leap" for human exploration.

After the flight, Armstrong insisted that he intended to say "a man." Some experts say that the "a" was dropped because of a glitch in the radio signal, but most assume that Armstrong just left out the word. As the years went on, Armstrong's comments on the mystery took on an air of ambiguity. "We'll never know," Neil Armstrong told an interviewer in 1971.

If he did leave out the word, it's a natural slip to make: Dean Armstrong omitted the "a" himself the first time he quoted the phrase, and had to correct himself a moment later. "It was 'that is one small step for A man,'" he said.

Update for 5:30 p.m. ET Dec. 30: A commenter points out that Dean's recollection runs counter to what his brother Neil told James Hansen about the speech for his authorized biography, "First Man: The Life of Neil A. Armstrong," published in 2005:

"Once on the surface and realizing that the moment was at hand, fortunately I had some hours to think about it after getting there. My own view was that it was a very simplistic statement: what can you say when you step off of something? Well, something about a step. It just sort of evolved during the period that I was doing the procedures of the practice takeoff and the EVA prep and all the other activities that were on our flight schedule at the time. I didn't think it was particularly important, but other people obviously did. Even so, I have never thought that I picked a particularly enlightening statement. It was a very simple statement."

So maybe the controversy over those first words from the lunar surface will continue after all. ...

Update for 4:50 p.m. ET Jan. 4: Over the past few days, there's been a lot of back and forth over Neil and Dean Armstrong's intentions. Was Neil lying when he said that the words "just sort of evolved" after the moon landing? Was Dean lying when he said Neil had the words in mind before liftoff? In a Space.com commentary, Andrew Chaikin suggests that both men could be right. He says Neil Armstrong wasn't the kind of guy to let the matter of his moon speech go unconsidered until the last minute:

"... Nothing in Neil’s post-flight statements rules out the possibility that he thought up the 'one small step' line before leaving Earth. He didn’t say 'I thought up the quote after we landed'; he said, 'I decided what I would say after we landed.'

"Dean Armstrong's story just adds a little ambiguity. Maybe Neil had more than one quote in mind at that point, and only shared one of them with his brother. Or maybe the quote he showed his brother was an early draft, but after all these years, Dean remembers seeing the final version.

"We'll probably never know the answer.

"What it does not mean is that somehow Armstrong 'fibbed' or 'lied' to the public for 40 years. Everyone who knew Neil well has described him as extraordinarily principled. That was certainly the man I saw when I interviewed him, and in the years that followed, as we became friends. ..."

More about the first moonwalker:

• The Year in Space: Hello, Mars ... Farewell, Neil
• The lighter side of Neil Armstrong
• Why Neil Armstrong was camera-shy
• Cosmic Log archive on Neil Armstrong

Alan Boyle is NBCNews.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter and adding the Cosmic Log page to your Google+ presence. To keep up with Cosmic Log as well as NBCNews.com's other stories about science and space, sign up for the Tech & Science newsletter, delivered to your email in-box every weekday. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.

David Lillo / AFP - Getty Images

Comet McNaught shines above Chile in 2007. Will Comet ISON be as bright in 2013?

Next year's most eagerly awaited shows in the skies above might not happen — but that's exactly what makes them so eagerly awaited. There's nothing like uncertainty to build up the drama, and right now, Comet PANSTARRS and Comet ISON are surrounded by bright haloes of uncertainty.

The picture should be getting clearer in the weeks ahead for the comet formally known as C/2011 L4 PANSTARRS, which was discovered in 2011. It'll take a few more months to get a fix on C/2012 S1 ISON, which was first spotted this September. All we can say right now is, if the comets live up to their current high expectations, PANSTARRS could blaze as bright as Venus in March — and then, in November and December, ISON could outshine the moon to the "Comet of the Century."

"If Comet ISON can survive perihelion passage ... then we are almost surely in for a striking display in the morning sky as Comet ISON recedes from the Sun next December," veteran observer John Bortle said this month on the Comets Mailing List. "Its immense tail, partly the result of our extremely favorable viewing circumstances in this case and just as with the Great Comet of 1680, could well result in a tail of amazing length and surface brightness, even if tipped by only tiny, relatively insignificant head."

The best part is that these comets will be visible in the Northern Hemisphere, unlike the spectacles created by Comet McNaught in 2007 and by Comet Lovejoy a year ago. Why let the Southern Hemisphere have all the fun?

PANSTARRS and ISON are just two of the highlights coming up for skywatchers next year. Here's my top-10 list for 2013, plus some bonus picks from Space.com skywatching columnist Joe Rao:

Jan. 2-3 for Quadrantid meteors: If the weather's clear, the Quadrantid meteors should put on serviceable show this year. The Quadrantids are sparked by debris from asteroid 2003 EH1, and appear to emanate from an area of the sky known as Quadrans Muralis, around the northern tip of the constellation Bootes. The peak rate is expected to reach 80 meteors per hour, but the glare of a waning gibbous moon could interfere somewhat. "Unlike the more famous Perseid and Geminid meteor showers, the Quadrantids only last a few hours, so it's the morning of Jan. 3 or nothing," NASA says. Check out NASA's Quadrantids website for a video feed on the nights of Jan. 2-4.

April 25 for partial lunar eclipse: Three eclipses of the moon are coming during 2013 — and although none of them will be spectacular, they're worth keeping an eye on if you're in the right place. The April 25 partial eclipse will be visible from Europe, Africa, Asia and the Pacific. The other two lunar eclipses are a nearly imperceptible hint of a penumbral eclipse on May 25, and a somewhat deeper penumbral eclipse on Oct. 18-19 (visible, at least in part, from the Americas, Europe, Africa and Asia). Even if you miss seeing these eclipses with your own eyes, there'll be plenty of photo galleries showing the moon in its best light.

March for Comet PANSTARRS: The comet is due to streak past Earth on March 5 and make its turn around the sun, known as perihelion, on March 9-10. The prime time for observers at mid-northern latitudes will come after perihelion, when PANSTARRS will be visible in the evening sky. On March 12, the comet is expected to share the sunset's afterglow with a beautiful crescent moon.

Issei Kato / Reuters file

Clouds cast a pall over an annular solar eclipse as seen from Hirai Daini Elementary School in Tokyo on May 21, 2012. An annular eclipse is due to occur on May 10, 2013, and in November there'll be a hybrid eclipse that morphs from annularity to totality.

May 9-10 for annular solar eclipse: A "Ring of Fire" eclipse will roll across Australia, Papua New Guinea and the South Pacific, with a partial solar eclipse visible from a wider swath of the Pacific. If past history is any guide, some of us in North America will be watching the event unfold on the evening of the 9th, via webcasts from the scene. 

May 24-28 for planetary party: Mercury, Venus and Jupiter mix it up in western skies over a series of nights in May, with Saturn and the moon adding their shine. The main event may well be the Venus-Jupiter conjunction on May 28 — but it won't be as spectacular as the double-planet feature we saw in February, because this one will take place so soon after sunset. 

June 23 for Supermoon: The moon goes full just after this year's closest approach to Earth, meaning that it'll look 14 percent bigger and 30 percent brighter than it does at maximum distance. Last May's Supermoon made such a splash that I suspect this could turn into an annual moon-watching event. 

Aug. 11-13 for Perseid meteors: Annual meteor showers have their ups and downs, and the advance word is that 2013 will be an "up" year for the Perseids. The moon will be a mere crescent in the morning sky, cutting down on the glare. The flux of shooting stars is expected to be normal, peaking at around 100 meteors per hour.

Oct. 12 for moon observation: International Observe the Moon Night provides an opportunity for veteran skywatchers to show you the moon at its best — no, not during the full moon, but during the first-quarter phase. That's when you can get a good look at the moon's craters and shadowy mountains. Check in with the InOMN website for updates.

Nov. 3 for hybrid solar eclipse: This hybrid is a strange one, starting out as an annular "Ring of Fire" eclipse and turning into a total eclipse as the moon's shadow races across the planet. The track of annularity-totality runs across the Atlantic, goes through the middle of Africa and ends up in Somalia. If you can't afford a cruise or an expedition, keep a watch on the webcasts.

November-December for Comet ISON: Will ISON shine "brighter even than the full moon" a year from now? That seems hard to believe right now, but by next autumn, astronomers should have a good idea just how much of a phenomenon the comet could turn into. NASA's Curiosity rover may be able to snap a picture when ISON passes by Mars in September, and it could become visible to the naked eye in October. It's due to come well within a million miles of the sun at perihelion on Nov. 28 — and that will be the most dramatic moment for skywatchers. Some comets, like last year's Comet Elenin, break up when they slingshot around the sun. Others, like Comet Lovejoy, survive the encounter spectacularly. If ISON lucks out, we could well be raving about the Great Christmas Comet of 2013 by this time next year. (Just don't believe anyone who tells you it's a doomsday comet.)

Bonus round: Over at Space.com, Joe Rao's "13 must-see stargazing events for 2013" also include a close conjunction of the moon and Jupiter on Jan. 21, great evening views of Mercury from Feb. 2 to 23, and a holiday show featuring Venus in December. And don't forget the northern lights: Although auroral displays are hard to predict, the height of the sun's 11-year activity cycle should bring some great light shows to Earth's higher latitudes in 2013. 

Update for 8:50 p.m. ET: British educator-astronomer Stuart Atkinson has set up a blog titled "Waiting for ISON" to monitor the comet countdown. Atkinson is also in charge of "The Road to Endeavour" blog about the Opportunity rover on Mars; and The Gale Gazette, which keeps tabs on NASA's Mars Curiosity mission.

More about the coming comets:

• Video: A comet to watch in 2013
• Flash interactive: Inside a comet
• Comet PANSTARRS could be a stunner (or not)
• Comet ISON just might show up in daytime skies

Alan Boyle is NBCNews.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter and adding the Cosmic Log page to your Google+ presence. To keep up with Cosmic Log as well as NBCNews.com's other stories about science and space, sign up for the Tech & Science newsletter, delivered to your email in-box every weekday. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.

NASA / JPL-Caltech / SSI

Saturn's storm systems swirl in a near-infrared image captured by the Cassini orbiter's camera system on Dec. 24, from a distance of 441,028 miles (709,766 kilometers).

The storms of Saturn ripple through the frame of a black-and-white close-up captured by the Cassini orbiter on Christmas Eve and received on Earth on Wednesday.

"Close-up" is a relative term: When this picture was taken, Cassini was 441,028 miles (709,766 kilometers) away from Saturn, or almost twice the distance between Earth and the moon. Also, "black-and-white" doesn't tell the whole story: The picture was captured through the wide-angle camera's CB2 red filter, which brings out more of the variations in the cloud tops of the planet's atmosphere. For an even more dramatic illustration of the effect, compare the photos accompanying this report about Saturn's north polar vortex.

So what's black and white and red all over? This picture answers the riddle.

For more pictures from Cassini, including a top-10 photo slideshow and raw imagery from last weekend's flyby of the Saturnian moon Rhea, check out NASA's Cassini website as well as the online home base for the CICLOPS imaging team. You can also click through these additional stunners from the Cassini mission:

• Holiday treats from Saturn and beyond
• Orbiter spots an alien Nile on Titan
• Seasons change, and so does Saturn
• Slideshow: Greatest hits from Cassini 

Update for 9:50 p.m. ET: I originally wrote that the CB2 filter was an infrared filter, but NASA says it's just on the edge of the visible-light spectrum, going into the near-infrared, at a wavelength of 751 nm. Good: That makes the riddle even more apt.

Alan Boyle is NBCNews.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter and adding the Cosmic Log page to your Google+ presence. To keep up with Cosmic Log as well as NBCNews.com's other stories about science and space, sign up for the Tech & Science newsletter, delivered to your email in-box every weekday. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.

Long-ago lore still has the power to ignite modern-day controversies: Witness the tempests that were stirred up this year over the Maya calendar, the purported "Gospel of Jesus' Wife," a bone box linked to early Christians, a disputed dinosaur skeleton and the plan to clone a woolly mammoth.

It turned out that there was much more to each of these cases than met the eye. Or sometimes much less. Either way, we'll be hearing more about ancient mysteries in the year to come. Here's a status report on six of 2012's most controversial mysteries (and missteps) in the realms of archaeology, anthropology and paleontology.

Gospel of Jesus' Wife: Harvard historian Karen King stirred up a sensation in September with the unveiling of a papyrus that apparently quotes Jesus talking about "my wife." The claims quickly sparked questions about the murky origins of the papyrus, and the Vatican suggested that the controversial text was faked. Most other experts on textual analysis were similarly skeptical.

The Harvard Theological Review withdrew plans to publish a scholarly article about the papyrus in its January issue, and this month a spokesman for the journal said tests to authenticate the document were not yet complete. The Smithsonian Channel has delayed broadcasting a documentary on the find, pending further testing. Status: In limbo.

The Jonah box: In February, researchers announced that they used a camera-equipped robotic arm to study an ossuary, or funerary bone box, within a sealed underground tomb in Jerusalem. They said the box was engraved with a picture of a fish, as well as allusions to "Jonah" and resurrection. Their conclusion was that the inscriptions served as evidence that early Christians were buried in the tomb — but skeptics disputed that interpretation. Did the picture really show a fish, or was it an upside-down tower, or an urn? The controversy was stoked by the fact that the "Jonah box" team was also behind the even more hotly debated "Jesus Tomb" project a couple of years earlier.

Months later, the findings are still in dispute. One of the researchers behind the find is James Tabor, a religious studies professor at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte.  He says some experts have told him privately that they agree with his interpretation, but they're reluctant to speak out because of the acrimony surrounding the original reports. One expert who has voiced cautious support for the "Jonah and the fish" interpretation is Princeton Theological Seminary's James Charlesworth. (That support, too, has come under criticism.) Tabor acknowledges that more evidence is needed. "What we really need to do is enter the tomb and bring those ossuaries out. ... But that would have to be maybe next year," he said today. Status: In limbo.

Maya calendar: 2012's most publicized ancient mystery has to do with the Maya calendar, and the fact that Dec. 21 apparently marked the end of a series of cycles — including the 394-year baktun cycle as well as the 5,126-year "cycle of creation." Somehow, those calendrical cycles got mixed up with worries about the end of the world. Did the ancient Maya really think the cosmos would blink out of existence when the calendar ended? And if they did, why should we believe them?

Nothing happened on Dec. 21, other than some New Age-style celebrations of the new age. But the controversy did attract some extra attention for archaeological finds — including the discovery of a calendar workshop that clearly referred to dates beyond 2012, and an inscription that refers to the end of a calendar cycle in 2012, but not the end of the world. Status: Case closed.

Heritage Auctions via Reuters

An 8-foot-tall dinosaur skeleton is tied up in federal court proceedings.

Disputed dinosaur: You could argue that the world's hottest dinosaur fossil is currently in federal custody in New York. The 24-foot-long skeleton, nicknamed Ty, was said to come from a tyrannosaur-like species known as Tarbosaurus bataar. Fossil dealer Eric Prokopi sold it for more than $1 million in May, but experts claimed that the bones must have been smuggled out of Mongolia years earlier. Federal authorities seized the skeleton and filed criminal charges against Prokopi.

The civil and criminal proceedings yielded some surprises: Prokopi's lawyers said the skeleton was assembled from bones that were gathered up from various sources, leading to a new nickname: "Franken-saurus." Government prosecutors, meanwhile, said they have photos and forms to back up their claims that the dealer was "a participant in the black market" in Mongolia. Just today, Prokopi pleaded guilty to the smuggling charges and agreed to give up the dinosaur skeleton. That means Ty will eventually be sent back to Mongolia. Prokopi could be sentenced to up to 17 years in prison, but today's plea may win him leniency from the court. Status: Case essentially closed.

Pyramids on Google Earth: Researcher Angela Micol made a splash in August with claims that Google Earth imagery appeared to show pyramid-type structures in the Egyptian desert. She suggested that these were previously unknown sites — but it turns out that archaeologists have known about them for decades, and have studied them up close. The most intriguing formations are natural mounds, topped by structures that may have served as watchtowers and/or wells, said Italian Egyptologist Paola Davoli.

Another formation that Micol saw in the imagery is thought to be an oddly shaped natural butte. Micol told me in September that she was working with contacts in Egypt to get a closer look, but there haven't been any new revelations lately. Status: Case close to being closed.

Cloning a woolly mammoth: Is it really possible to bring the woolly mammoth back to life, tens of thousands of years after the species went extinct? It's highly doubtful, but Korean and Russian researchers are still trying. The project, unveiled in March, would involve recovering viable cells from a mammoth specimen pulled from the Siberian permafrost, implanting the cells' genetic material into an elephant egg, creating a cloned embryo, then transferring the embryo to an elephant womb for gestation. Each of those steps is fraught with difficulty — and the South Korea scientist in charge of the project is none other than Hwang Woo-Suk, who was disgraced several years ago in a scandal surrounding faked cloning results.

Last month, The Siberian Times reported that samples of mammoth bone marrow, hair, muscles and fat tissue were taken from Yakutsk to Seoul, to find out whether living cells could be extracted. Sources at the lab in Seoul did not respond to phone or email inquiries this week, but even if the cells turn out to be viable, don't expect to see a mammoth resurrection anytime soon. Russian researcher Semyon Grigoriev said it would be "years before we learn to choose the suitable cells or to re-create an extinct DNA molecule." Status: Case not yet closed. Or should that be, "not yet cloned"?

Dinosaurs ... and more: Science writer Brian Switek (a.k.a. @Laelaps) rounded up the year's top stories in paleontology at his "Dinosaur Tracking" blog, just before shifting over to Phenomena, National Geographic's new online science salon. In an email, he highlighted a few of his favorite stories:

"I was particularly interested by Nyasasaurus (confirming an earlier origin for dinosaurs), Yutyrannus (showing that feathers were not just for small dinosaurs) and mammal bones adding new evidence that dinosaurs may have been endothermic," he told me. "In other fossil news, the two that jump to mind are: fossil turtles caught in the act of mating; and a new fossil shark species which shows that Carcharocles megalodon was not a giant ancestor of today's white shark, but a member of a different lineage altogether."

I've included the fossil turtle-sex tale in our annual roundup for the Weird Science Awards, but here are 30 more ancient mysteries that should keep you clicking into the new year:

Ten top paleontology tales from Cosmic Log and NBC News:

• Earliest-known dinosaur to walk the earth identified
• Four-winged flying dinosaur sported glossy black feathers
• Paleontologists find the king of the feathered dinosaurs
• Researchers re-create the love song of the Jurassic katydid
• This mammal-like predator reigned long before the dinosaurs
• Methane-emitting dinosaurs could have warmed the earth
• World's oldest panda fossils found, and not in China
• Researchers decide to downsize the dinosaurs
• Scientists say dinosaurs' feathers were meant for mating
• Ancient lizard that died with the dinos is named after Obama

Ten top anthropology tales from Cosmic Log and NBC News:

• New technique clears up Denisovan DNA mysteries
• Australopithecus sediba: This pre-human ate like a chimp
• Cave art is so old the Neanderthals could have done it
• Hunter-gatherers were 'friending' long before Facebook
• Ancient Lucy's kin could have swung from the trees
• Researchers reconstruct the real-life face of a 'Hobbit'
• Foot bones could help reveal origins of upright walking
• Tools suggest early humans were smarter than we thought
• New flat-faced human species possibly discovered
• China's Red Deer Cave People may have been different species

Top 10 discoveries from Archaeology magazine:

• Maya sun god masks (more from Brown University)
• Neanderthal medicine chest (more from Cosmic Log)
• First use of poison (more from LiveScience on NBC News)
• Aztec ritual burial (more from Discovery News)
• Caesar's Gallic outpost (more from LiveScience on NBC News)
• Europe's oldest engraving (more from Discovery News on NBC News)
• First pots in China (more from Harvard University)
• Scottish 'Frankenstein' mummies (more from LiveScience on NBC News)
• 2,000-year-old stash in Israel (more from LiveScience on NBC News)
• Oldest Egyptian funerary boat (more from Ahram Online)

Alan Boyle is NBCNews.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter and adding the Cosmic Log page to your Google+ presence. To keep up with Cosmic Log as well as NBCNews.com's other stories about science and space, sign up for the Tech & Science newsletter, delivered to your email in-box every weekday. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.

Baz Ratner / Reuters

An employee of the Israeli Antiquities Authority displays figurines at Tel Motza archaeological site on the outskirts of Jerusalem.

Archaeologists have uncovered a 2,750-year-old temple near Jerusalem, along with pottery and clay figurines that suggest the site was the home base for a ritual cult, the Israeli Antiquities Authority said Wednesday.

The discovery was made during excavations at the Tel Motza archaeological site, about 3 miles (5 kilometers) west of Jerusalem, during preparations for work on a new section of Israeli's Highway 1, the agency said in a statement.

"The ritual building at Tel Motza is an unusual and striking find, in light of the fact that there are hardly any remains of ritual buildings of the period in Judaea at the time of the First Temple," excavation directors Anna Eirikh, Hamoudi Khalaily and Shua Kisilevitz were quoted as saying in the statement.

The Bible says the First Temple was built in Jerusalem by Solomon, son of King David, and archaeologists estimate that construction was undertaken in the 10th century B.C. The excavation's directors say the Tel Motza temple must have been active in an era "prior to the religious reforms throughout the kingdom at the end of the monarchic period (at the time of Hezekiah and Isaiah), which abolished all ritual sites, concentrating ritual practices solely at the Temple in Jerusalem."

Tel Motza was thought to be associated with the ancient settlement called "Mozah" in the Book of Joshua. During previous work, archaeologists uncovered a large structure with storehouses and a number of silos. They said that structure might have served as a storage facility for Jerusalem's grain supplies.

Baz Ratner / Reuters

Archaeologist Anna Eirikh displays a horse figurine at Tel Motza archaeological site on the outskirts of Jerusalem.

Skyview / IAA

An overhead view shows the Tel Motza archaeological site.

The newly discovered structure has massive walls and a wide, east-facing entrance, conforming to the tradition of temple construction at the time, the site directors said. "The rays of the sun rising in the east would have illuminated the object placed inside the temple first, symbolizing the divine presence within," they said.

Inside the temple, archaeologists found what appeared to be a square altar, with a cache of ritual items nearby. Those items included fragments of pottery chalices, decorated ritual pedestals and two types of pottery figurines. Some of the figurines represented animals — mainly horses in harnesses— while others were humanlike heads with curling hair and flat headdresses. Such figurines hint at the influence of Philistine coastal culture.

"The find of the sacred structure, together with the accompanying cache of sacred vessels, and especially the significant coastal influence evident in the anthropomorphic figurines, still require extensive research," the directors said.

More about Jewish archaeology:

• 9,000-year-old charms found in Israel
• Artifacts reveal history behind David and Goliath
• In Israel, diggers unearth the Bible's bad guys
• Professor hunts for 'Lost Ark of the Covenant'
• Gallery: Eight Jewish archaeological discoveries
• Cosmic Log archive on archaeology

Alan Boyle is NBCNews.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter and adding the Cosmic Log page to your Google+ presence. To keep up with Cosmic Log as well as NBCNews.com's other stories about science and space, sign up for the Tech & Science newsletter, delivered to your email in-box every weekday. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.

Sex, drugs, rock 'n' roll and the Apocalypse: 2012 had it all. But only 10 stories about the past year's strangest scientific research can make it into our Weird Science hall of fame — so we're going to need your help.

Past winners of the Weird Science Awards include glow-in-the-dark kittens and puppies, a 2,700-year-old marijuana stash, meth-crazy fruit flies, reattached rabbit penises and the corpse-dissolving machine. The Maya apocalypse came in for honorable mention last year and the year before, but this could be an even bigger year for end-of-the-world weirdness.

There are lots of other contenders from 2012, however. It's hard to beat the story about the sex-starved flies who drowned their sorrows in alcohol while researchers watched. That covers sex and drugs. It also can make you feel sorry for the scientists who had to watch all that fly-sized heartbreak. (They might want to compare notes with the researchers who studied why alcohol makes people feel good.)

The sixth annual Weird Science Award competition follows the precedent we've set in past years: We offer up 30 nominees from the past year, and it's up to you to pick the top 10. We've included a couple of studies that have won Ig Nobel awards — which are given annually to recognize "research that makes people laugh — and then think." That's a fine criterion for the Weirdies as well. Or you can go with research that makes you laugh — and then makes you wonder, "What on earth were they thinking?"

Write-in votes and second-guessing are encouraged; you can register them in your comments. If a write-in vote gets enough support from commenters, the research in question will be added to the ballot.

The 10 nominees that get the most votes as of noon ET Jan. 2 will be the 2013 winners of the Weirdy Awards. Later that day, we'll discuss this year's crop of weird science with Ig Nobel creator Marc Abrahams on "Virtually Speaking Science," a talk show that plays out on the Web and in the Second Life virtual world. Tune in at 9 p.m. ET Jan. 2.

Johan Ordonez / AFP - Getty Images

Maya shamans take part in a ceremony on Dec. 21, celebrating the end of the calendar cycle known as Baktun 13 - and the end of the hype over a 2012 doomsday. Click on the image to watch a video about the phenomenon.

Here are the nominees, in chronological order. May the oddest science stories be ever in your favor!

Leonardo da Vinci ... fashion designer?
'Rapunzel Number' brings math to ponytails
Legless amphibians could win weirdness prize
Sex-starved flies drown woes in alcohol
Earliest painting of transvestite uncovered
Zoo chimp devises elaborate plots to attack humans
Ancient 'Loch Ness monster' suffered from arthritis
MIT engineers solve stuck ketchup problem
Rock music compared to animal distress calls
Turtles' sex act frozen in time
Scientists explain why people wear pants
Three-hour sex sessions exhaust squid
Shark teeth have built-in toothpaste
Bizarre fish has penis on its head 
Researchers create a sneeze-free geranium
Scientists figure out why coffee spills
How physics can tilt the odds in roulette
Mice can change their (ultrasonic) tune
Bizarre turtles pee from their mouths
Puppies learn to catch yawns as they grow
'Finding Nemo' fish talk their way out of a fight
750-legged millipede sets world record
DNA report claims that Bigfoot is part human
Help out researchers: Send them your poop
Scientists make brain cells from urine
Is reality 'unreal'? Scientists aim to find out
Did magic mushrooms inspire Santa saga?
Maya apocalypse fizzles out
'Alien'-like skulls unearthed in ancient cemetery
Scientists unravel secret behind Rudolph's red nose

Still more weird science:

• 10 weirdest animal discoveries of 2012
• 10 stories that made us blush in 2012
• A dozen obvious findings for 2012
• 2012 Weird Science Awards
• 2011 Weird Science Awards
• 2010 Weird Science Awards
• 2009 Weird Science Awards
• 2008 Weird Science Awards

For more serious looks back at 2012, check out The Year in Science and The Year in Space, as well as our Year in Space slideshow.

Alan Boyle is NBCNews.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter and adding the Cosmic Log page to your Google+ presence.

To keep up with Cosmic Log as well as NBCNews.com's other stories about science and space, sign up for the Tech & Science newsletter, delivered to your email in-box every weekday. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.

Clay Frost / NBC News

The leading explanation for the blblical "Star of Wonder" is that the Three Wise Men saw a series of planetary conjunctions. Click on the image to launch a Flash interactive about the astronomical side of the Nativity story.

The Star of Bethlehem is one of the best-known parts of the Christmas story, celebrated in the Gospel of Matthew as well in as a constellation of holiday songs. It was that star that led the Three Wise Men to the infant Jesus — at least if you believe the Bible. But is there anything in the astronomical record that supports the story of the "Star of Wonder"?

The answer is, maybe. The case of the Christmas Star illustrates how slippery things can get when you try to mix scripture and science.

First of all, there's no way to show a definitive connection between any astronomical phenomenon and the tale of the Nativity. On one hand, you could just say that the star was a miraculous apparition. In that case, no further evidence would be needed. On the other hand, you could say that the whole Nativity story, including the part about the Three Wise Men, is fictional. In that case, trying to find the Christmas Star would be as fruitless as trying to determine the real-life location of Dumbledore's tomb in the "Harry Potter" saga.

But if you go along with the astronomers who have looked into the likeliest scenarios to explain Matthew's references to the Christmas Star, the line of reasoning takes some surprising twists: The star could have been a series of planetary conjunctions, or a comet, or perhaps a nova. These events didn't occur during the year A.D. 1, which most people assume was the year Jesus was born. Instead, they occurred at least a couple of years earlier. They also didn't occur anywhere close to Dec. 25.

And here's what might be the most surprising twist: All this meshes with the views generally held by scriptural scholars.

Matthew's story tells of "wise men from the east" — who were actually priestly astrologers. What they saw in their astronomical calculations led them to alert Judea's king, Herod the Great, to the birth of the "king of the Jews." Herod told the astrologers to look for the infant in Bethlehem and let him know what they found. Matthew says they came upon the infant Jesus, but were warned in a dream not to go back to Herod.

Historical accounts suggest that Herod died around the 4 B.C. — although some scholars suggest the date could have been as early as 5 B.C. or as late as 1 B.C. Using this time frame, astronomers have checked the historical records and run computer simulations of the night sky — and they've come up with these leading candidates for the Christmas Star:

Planets: The simulations show that there was a rare series of planetary groupings, or conjunctions, in 3 B.C. and 2 B.C. The first conjunction was on the morning of June 12 in 3 B.C., with Venus close to Saturn in the eastern sky. The second conjunction was a spectacular pairing of Venus and Jupiter on Aug. 12 in the constellation Leo, which ancient astrologers associated with the destiny of the Jews.

Between September of 3 B.C. and June of 2 B.C., Jupiter would have passed by the star Regulus in Leo, reversed itself and passed it again, then turned back and passed the star a third time. This reversal was due to the planet's apparent retrograde motion — a phenomenon familiar to the astrologers but not necessarily noticed by the casual observer. In his book on the Christmas Star, astronomer John Mosley says this would have been a significant event, because ancient astrologers considered Jupiter the kingly planet and regarded Regulus as the "king star."

The crowning touch came on June 17 of 2 B.C., when Jupiter was so close to Venus that "they would have looked like a single star," Mosley said. His scenario implies that the climax of the Nativity story came in the spring of 2 B.C.

There's a problem with this scenario, however: It doesn't work if Herod died in 4 B.C. An astronomer at the University of Sheffield, David Hughes, has proposed a different series of planetary conjunctions in 7 B.C. This was a triple conjunction, in which Jupiter and Saturn would appear to approach each other three times between May and December. "Events indicate that Jesus Christ was probably born in the autumn of that year, around October, 7 B.C.," Hughes wrote in a paper published by the journal Nature. 

Comet: Other astronomers have considered the idea that the "star" was actually a comet. The likeliest candidate would be a comet recorded by Chinese astronomers in the year 5 B.C., in the constellation Capricorn or Aquila. Comet Halley would have been visible in 11 B.C., and the record suggests that other comets might have been seen in the time frame between those two dates. "The snag is that they're not that rare," Hughes told the BBC. "They were also commonly associated with the 'four Ds' — doom, death, disease and disaster. So if it did contain a message, it would have been a bad omen." 

Nova or supernova: The Chinese were particularly good at chronicling supernovae, and the fact that none was recorded during the time frame in question has led most astronomers to discount a supernova as the explanation for the Christmas Star. However, astronomer Mark Kidger argues in his book, "The Star of Bethlehem," that the comet seen by the Chinese in 5 B.C. was actually a nova — that is, a suddenly brightening star. The temporary brightening may not have caused a worldwide marvel, but if it came after a series of planetary conjunctions, it could have been enough of a signal to send the wise men on their way.

Kidger's scenario calls for the climax of the Christmas Star story to come in March of 5 B.C., after months of buildup. He even names his candidate for the Christmas Star: DO Aquilae, which is just faintly visible today.

What scholars say: None of these scenarios would be consistent with Western Christianity's traditional schedule for the Christmas season, which calls for the "12 Days of Christmas" to begin on Dec. 25 and wind up with the arrival of the Three Kings on Epiphany, Jan. 6. However, scriptural scholars have pointed out that none of the Gospels refers to the date of Jesus' birth. In fact, the Gospel of Luke’s account about shepherds being out in their fields might make more sense if the birth occurred during the spring lambing season.

So how did Dec. 25, A.D. 1, get set as Jesus' birthdate? The current counting system for years (A.D. and B.C.) was set up in the sixth century by a monk named Dionysius Exiguus, who combined his reading of scripture, Roman history and end-of-the-world numerology to pick Year 1. Scriptural scholars now agree, however, that the timing of the Nativity story would make more sense if the birth occurred earlier than that — because of the timing of Herod's death as well as a better understanding of the chronology for Roman emperors and governors.

As for the December date: Scholars say that the early Christian church wasn't all that interested in marking the day of Jesus' birth. For example, a 3rd-century theologian named Origen mocked the Romans for making such a big deal over divine birthdays.

Around the year 200, Clement of Alexandria noted that the favored dates for the birth were in the March-April-May time frame — which would be consistent with the astronomical scenarios for the Christmas star.

It wasn't until the mid-4th century that Dec. 25 started showing up in church literature. The conventional wisdom is that Christmas was set in December after Constantine the Great's conversion to Christianity in 312, to bring the Christian holiday into line with pagan celebrations of the solstice. But Andrew McGowan, warden and president of Trinity College at the University of Melbourne in Australia, argues in favor of an alternate explanation: that church leaders wanted to link their date for Jesus' conception with the presumed date of his death, on March 25. If you add nine months to March 25, you get Dec. 25 as the date of birth.

"Connecting Jesus' conception and death in this way will certainly seem odd to modern readers, but it reflects ancient and medieval understandings of the whole of salvation being bound up together," McGowan writes in this month's essay for Bible History Today.

The tale of Christmas and the Star of Wonder shows how astronomy and numerology can get tangled up with religion. But we're familiar with that, right? After all, we've just been through the apocalyptic angst surrounding the turnover of the Maya Long Count calendar. Fortunately, this week's turn of the calendar has a much more positive spin. So here's wishing you a wonderful holiday season of your choice — whether it celebrates Christmas or the solstice, the new year on the Gregorian calendar, or the new baktun for the Maya.

More about the science of the season:

• Five surprising facts about Christmas
• The Christmas sky: A gift for stargazers
• Gallery: 10 gifts of science for Christmas

Alan Boyle is NBCNews.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter and adding the Cosmic Log page to your Google+ presence. To keep up with Cosmic Log as well as NBCNews.com's other stories about science and space, sign up for the Tech & Science newsletter, delivered to your email in-box every weekday. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.

SpaceX's prototype Grasshopper rocket took one giant leap last week, rising to a 12-story height and settling back down safely on its landing legs at the company's Texas rocket test facility. Just for fun, the engineers let a dummy cowboy go along for the ride.

The Dec. 17 test flight at the pad in McGregor, Texas, was documented in a YouTube video released today — and discussed in a series of lighthearted tweets from SpaceX's billionaire founder, Elon Musk.

"To provide a little perspective on the size of Grasshopper, we added a 6-ft cowboy to the rocket. ... Then we took him for a ride," Musk wrote. So how did the cowboy fare? "No problemo," said Musk.

The 10-story-tall Grasshopper rocket is designed to take off and land vertically, as part of Musk's plan to develop a rocket capable of returning itself to a launch pad for rapid reusability. Today's vertical-takeoff launch systems generally rely upon expendable lower stages — although the space shuttle's solid rocket boosters could be recovered from the Atlantic Ocean and refurbished for reuse. If a rocket stage can return to its launch facility intact and ready to go again, that could significantly lower the cost of spaceflight. That's what Musk is shooting for.

SpaceX says the Grasshopper consists of a Falcon 9 rocket first stage, a Merlin 1D engine, four steel landing legs with hydraulic dampers, and a steel support structure. During the prototype's first flight test on Sept. 21, the Grasshopper rose 6 feet into the air. The second test, on Nov. 1, lasted 8 seconds and lifted the Grasshopper 17.7 feet (5.4 meters) off the pad. The company said last week's third test went for 29 seconds, during which the Grasshopper rose 131 feet (40 meters) into the air, hovered and landed safely back on the pad, using closed-loop thrust vector and throttle control.

SpaceX

A dummy cowboy is perched on SpaceX's Grasshopper rocket for a Dec. 17 test.

In addition to the Grasshopper, SpaceX is sending its Dragon capsules to resupply the International Space Station, working on a version of the Dragon that could carry astronauts into orbit sometime soon, and developing a Falcon Heavy rocket that could conceivably power flights to the moon. But Musk's long-range goal is even more ambitious: getting settlers to Mars. He has said Grasshopper-style rocket reusability is a key part of that long-term strategy.

"If it does works, it'll be pretty huge," he said last year during a speech at the National Press Club in Washington.  

More on the commercial space race:

• SpaceShipTwo straps on its engine
• Golden Spike wants to fly you to the moon ... for $1.4 billion
• Blue Origin's spaceship prototype aces pad-escape test
• Gallery: Ten players in the commercial space race
• Cosmic Log archive on the new space race

Alan Boyle is NBCNews.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter and adding the Cosmic Log page to your Google+ presence. To keep up with Cosmic Log as well as NBCNews.com's other stories about science and space, sign up for the Tech & Science newsletter, delivered to your email in-box every weekday. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.

NSIDC

This visualization shows Saturday's extent of Arctic sea ice, as charted by the National Snow and Ice Data Center. The readings have been overlaid on NASA imagery of the Northern Hemisphere. The orange line indicates the median extent of sea ice on the same calendar date for the 1979-2000 time period.

If Santa Claus is getting the feeling that someone's looking over his shoulder as he rushes to make his Christmas deadline, he's not wrong: A succession of satellites is monitoring his North Pole workshop and the rest of the Arctic on a daily basis. Based on the satellite readings, the long-term outlook is worrisome, for Santa and the rest of us as well.

This image shows the extent of Arctic sea ice, based on the latest microwave data from the Pentagon's DMSP-F17 satellite. Those readings are compared against the median extent for the same date over the 1979-2000 time frame. That median extent is indicated on the photo by the orange lines.

Earlier this month, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said in its annual "Arctic Report Card" that glaciers and sea ice retreated at a record rate this year, and that sea level rise has accelerated in the region. What's more, those changes are affecting ecosystems in the far north — spurring marine phytoplankton growth while putting extra pressure on land species such as lemmings and the Arctic fox.

There's also a spillover effect on ecosystems farther south. "What happens in the Arctic doesn't always stay in the Arctic," NOAA Administrator Jane Lubchenco said. "We're seeing Arctic changes in the ocean and the atmosphere that affect weather patterns elsewhere."

Keep tabs on those changes by checking in with NBC News' environmental coverage. For more visualizations of Arctic as well as Antarctic ice data, check out this reference page at the "Watts Up With That" blog. You can also scan NASA's report about this summer's retreat of the Arctic's ice cover. And for something completely different, here are 10 things you may not have known about the North Pole.

Today's visualization of the North Pole's ice is the latest offering from the Cosmic Log Space Advent Calendar, which features daily images of Earth from space through Christmas. Try these other visual goodies from the calendar:

• 2012 Cosmic Log Space Advent Calendar
• Day 1: A fantastic Chinese fan
• Day 2: Satellite shows a Grander Canyon
• Day 3: Typhoon stirs awe — and alarm
• Day 4: Glittering nighttime view of Riyadh
• Day 5: Night lights shine on 'Black Marble'
• Day 6: Holy sites seen at night
• Day 7: Blue Marble still leaves its mark
• Day 8: Satellites look into a volcano's hell
• Day 9: Jack Frost nipping at Alaska's nose
• Day 10: Cosmonaut looks down on peaks
• Day 11: Earth looms above moonwalker
• Day 12: Skytree casts shadow on Tokyo
• Day 13: Aurora sets stage for meteor show
• Day 14: Apollo's last look at Earthrise
• Day 15: A sobering moment from space
• Day 16: Middle Earth spotted from orbit
• Day 17: Mount Etna erupts ... in 3-D!
• Day 18: Gaze into the Great Blue Hole
• Day 19: Mount Fuji goes fuzzy
• Day 20: Look down on a ruined Maya city
• Day 21: Pyramids have their day in the sun
• Day 22: Outer-space views go festive
• 2011 Cosmic Log Space Advent Calendar
• 2010 Cosmic Log Space Advent Calendar
• The Atlantic: Hubble Advent Calendar
• Zooniverse Advent Calendar

Correction for 9:15 p.m. ET: I originally referred to the median extent of Arctic sea ice, but changed that reference to use "average" instead — which was an ill-advised move. Generally speaking, an "average" value refers to the mean, which can be quite different from the median. Here's an explanation from Purplemath that lays out the difference. Thanks to commenters for pointing out the distinction. (I also fixed a typo referring to "sea level rice.")

STScI

NASA and the Space Telescope Science Institute are offering free e-books about space telescopes.

Free books from NASA, the Hubble Space Telescope's science team and the European Space Agency bring Earth and the heavens to life — as long as you have an iPad, and the patience to wait for a longish download.

Even if you have a regular old computer, you can still download the books about Hubble and its successor, the James Webb Space Telescope, as PDF files. But you'll miss out on all the interactive features.

Those two books were unveiled today by the Baltimore-based Space Telescope Science Institute, which takes care of the science programming for the two NASA-funded telescopes. They're joining the ESA's first iBook, "Earth From Space: The Living Beauty," on my iPad bookshelf.

The Hubble book guides you through scores of pictures from the world's most famous space telescope, organized into categories ranging from cosmology to planetary science. There's also a chapter on the telescope itself, with a 3-D model and a diagram you can tap on to learn about all the components. (Our Flash interactive about Hubble takes a similar approach.) When you tally up all the interactives, videos and picture galleries, the content adds up to a lot more than the 84 pages on the screen.

NASA / STScI

The iBooks are crammed with cosmic images.

The 74-page e-book about the Webb telescope uses a similar approach to explain the science behind the $8.8 billion observatory, which is currently scheduled for launch in 2018. There aren't any pictures from the Webb, of course, but the book's interactives, videos and photo galleries explain how the telescope will observe the cosmic frontiers in infrared wavelengths.

"These new e-books from NASA will allow people to discover Hubble and Webb in a whole new way — both the science and the technology behind building them," Amber Straughn, an astrophysicist on the Webb telescope project at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, said in today's news release. "They collect all of the amazing resources about these two observatories in an excellent product that I think people will really enjoy."

While the NASA iBooks look outward, ESA's iBook looks back toward Earth, incorporating stunning images from Europe's Earth-observing satellites. The 104 pages cover our planet from the core to the cryosphere, from the oceans to the wilderness. You can set color-coded virtual globes spinning with a brush of your fingertip.

ESA

"Earth From Space" is the European Space Agency's first iBook.

"By turning the virtual pages of this iBook you will discover how some of the latest technology has changed the way we see Earth," Volker Liebig, director of ESA's Earth observation programs, said in the space agency's publication announcement. "So, it was time to bring these ‘scientific voyages’ to you in a dynamic way. I believe that electronic media hold a huge potential, just like satellite technology. They help you to discover the scientific world of spaceflight."

While the Hubble and Webb e-books are downloadable via Apple's iBookstore, you download "Earth From Space" directly from ESA's website and follow the instructions. You'll need to be patient: Each book packs in hundreds of megabytes' worth of data, so the download can take as long as 20 minutes over a home broadband connection. There were times when I wondered whether it'd ever finish. But if you're a fan of space imagery, these books are well worth the wait — especially when you consider that they're free.

More space imagery:

• 2012: The Year in Space
• Space slideshow gallery
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• 2012 Cosmic Log Space Advent Calendar

Alan Boyle is NBCNews.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter and adding the Cosmic Log page to your Google+ presence. To keep up with Cosmic Log as well as NBCNews.com's other stories about science and space, sign up for the Tech & Science newsletter, delivered to your email in-box every weekday. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.

Patrick Aventurier / Getty Images

Camera crews from all over the world continue to work Friday beyond 11:11 a.m., the time the Mayan apocalypse was supposed to occur in Bugarach village, France.

BUGARACH, France — The peacefulness of the Sals River Valley at the foothills of the Pyrenees in France belies its violent, enigmatic history. Once the place of ancient marauding Visigoths, its small villages were also home to the mystical Cathars and to the protectors of the cloth, the Knights Templar – both eliminated by inquisitions and despotic rulers.

Roughly two years ago, the peace of this land was broken once again by strange rumors surfacing online about Bugarach Mountain, a rocky beacon presiding over the landscape.

According to some reports, the peak of the mountain conceals an alien spaceship. Other sources say it is part of an alien space-time portal. The origins of the UFO stories have been difficult to trace, but have generated a response bordering on hysteria. Under normal circumstances, probably, such bizarre claims would have slunk away unnoticed or been relegated to the crazy bin. But, as they say, timing is everything.

For years, doomsayers warned that the end of a 5,125-year cycle in the Maya timekeeping system, which culminated on Dec. 21, would also signify the end of the world. In recent months, the UFO story has taken over the public imagination. Instead of being passed off as nonsense, Bugarach and its "resident UFO" became star European players in a global doomsday pantomime. And when it was announced that the regional authorities were calling in police and paramilitaries to prevent cultists from ascending the peak on doomsday, the village became the center of a media storm — a different kind of pantomime altogether.

Driving into the village on the morning of Dec. 19, a number of elements met the eyes: telltale blue uniforms and police vans peppering the sides of the roads, smoke rising languidly from stone chimneys, the looming figure of Bugarach Mountain. Other sights included columns of SUVs and satellite trucks snaking their way along the country roads. Roving packs of groomed-yet-rugged types with press passes and hungry looks were busy claiming positions within cordoned-off areas in the village.

No sight of cultists, or for that matter, anything more otherworldly than a mass of waterproof jackets and the hardened boots of teams waiting for their scoop. Soggy fields bordered with caution tape were reserved for vehicles, and over the course of the day the fields became emblazoned with acronyms and company crests, resembling an army of knights from different royal houses, awaiting battle.

Optimism reigned for the two days leading up to the eschatological event. Reporters heartily greeted each other and rival camera crews were sportingly scoped out. At dinner, the catch phrase, "Where are you from?" echoed around as different teams sat side by side at long tables, rubbing elbows and even sharing a bit of rustic bread. A cacophony of tongues filled the room. Outside, the village remained strangely empty.

Dawn breaks on Dec. 21 in Bugarach. Where are all the hippies? A Dutch producer mutters: "Maybe they’ve already crossed through the star gate." Most likely, they’ve been chased away.

"Anyway, who the heck would want to ride to another planet with this bunch?" NBC News overhears a French cameraman saying to his sound technician as he looks around the square.

Guillaume Horcajuelo / EPA

An unidentified woman speaks to journalists in the village of Bugarach in southern France on Dec. 21.

The few locals venturing out in the open are either bemused and vague, or are capitalizing on all the attention to make some cash — steaming croissants and chai tea are sold at a makeshift stall. The clientele? Dutch, French and Japanese TV crews. A young video artist from Switzerland takes a photo of a photographer taking a photo of reporters.

"This is very postmodern," he laughs. "This is the new story."

From time to time, rogue civilians break the fatigue that's setting in. A man arrives carrying a placard with the words, "The black stone of Bugarach." In an instant, he is mobbed by TV crews. Later, an angry resident shouts at the throng. Lenses swing and snap wildly.

Author Henry Lincoln accuses the media of creating and hyping the story.

"You’re doing it," he told NBC News. "If you would leave us in peace, nobody would be yelling about the end of the world and flying saucers coming to Bugarach."

Fair enough, this once sleepy town has been invaded. Neither by UFOs nor by extremists of any sort, but rather by dogged pursuers of what has proven to be an elusive story.

At what point does a reporter abandon a story? "Let’s get out of here. This is embarrassing," a correspondent states flatly.

Almost reluctantly, engines begin to start.

Guillaume Horcajuelo / EPA

Two men dressed in tin foil stand in the village as authorities block access to the peak of Bugarach in southern France on Dec. 21.

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Victor Ruiz Garcia / Reuters

A tourist raises her hands during a group meditation ceremony near the pyramid of Kukulkan at the Chichen Itza archaeological site on Dec. 21. Hundreds gathered to greet the sunrise on a day that marked a new age on the Maya calendar.

Tourists, mystics and Maya priests accentuated the positive this morning at Mexico's best-known Maya monument, the El Castillo pyramid at Chichen Itza, on a day that some thought would bring catastrophe.

For years, doomsayers warned that the end of a grand 5,125-year cycle in the Maya timekeeping system would signify the end of the world as well. Some feared that Dec. 21 would be marked by solar blasts, earthquakes, superstorms or other planetary disruptions. But the hundreds who flocked to El Castillo took a different message to heart.

"It's not the end of the world, it's an awakening of consciousness and good and love and spirituality — and it's been happening for a while," Mary Lou Anderson, a 53-year-old information technology consultant from Las Vegas, told Reuters.

Reuters reported that the rituals at Chichen Itza began just before the winter solstice, as dawn was breaking. A spotlight illuminated the western flank of El Castillo, a 100-foot-high pyramid that was built sometime between the 9th and the 12th centuries to serve as a temple to the Maya serpent god Kukulkan. Then a group of five English-speaking tourists, dressed in white,  made their way across the plain, dropped their bags and faced the pyramid with their arms raised. 

As the sun climbed into the sky, a man with dreadlocks played a didgeridoo at the north end of the pyramid, while a group of tourists meditated on brightly colored mats.

The visitors said they came to Chichen Itza not to face the world's end, but to make a new beginning. "I hope something happens to make me a better person," said Graham Hohlfelde, a 21-year-old student from St. Louis, Mo. "If I can get a little cosmic help, I won't turn it down."

Israel Leal / AP

Visitors and the El Castillo pyramid are silhouetted by the rising sun at Chichen Itza on Dec. 21, a day that some feared would bring disaster. Ceremonial fires burned and conches sounded off as dawn broke over teh steps of the pyramid, marking what many believe is the conclusion of a 5,125-year cycle in the Maya calendar.

Victor Ruiz Garcia / Reuters

Traditional costumes as well as T-shirts were worn by those attending Friday's rituals at Chichen Itza's El Castillo pyramid.

Pedro Pardo / AFP - Getty Images

Hundreds of onlookers - some holding mobile phones - raise their hands during rituals at Mexico's Chichen Itza archaeological site.

More about the non-apocalypse

• New, doom-free era begins
• What about doomsday preppers?
• French doomsday haven goes bust
• Year-end cartoon laughs at doomsday
• The Maya calendar's Big Day dawns
• Why NASA jumped the gun on doomsday
• Doomsday hot spots around the globe
• Video: 'We're very respectful of traditions'
• Cosmic Log archive on 2012 and doomsday fears

This report includes information from Reuters.

Alan Boyle is NBCNews.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter and adding the Cosmic Log page to your Google+ presence. To keep up with Cosmic Log as well as NBCNews.com's other stories about science and space, sign up for the Tech & Science newsletter, delivered to your email in-box every weekday. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.

Guillaume Horcajuelo / EPA

Two men dressed in tinfoil stand in the French village of Bugarach on Friday. The mountain near Bugarach was touted as a haven from the Maya apocalypse, but most of those who came to the village on the big day were journalists.

Doomsday was a bust in the French village of Bugarach, which was supposed to be one of the rare safe havens during the Maya apocalypse.

In advance of today's supposed global crisis, rumor-mongers spread the word that a peak near the picturesque village in the French Pyrenees (population: 200) would be the only place on Earth to escape destruction. A giant UFO and aliens were said to be waiting under the mountain, ready to burst through and spirit those nearby to safety.

When the rumors cropped up, authorities worried that tens of thousands of New Agers would overwhelm the village — so French gendarmes tried to seal off access to anyone not having the proper papers.

Some believers made it through. Ludovic Broquet, a 30-year-old plumber, told The Associated Press that he put a year of preparation into his trek, in hopes of finding a "gateway, the vortex that will open up here (at) the end of the world."

But most of the visitors to Bugarach today were journalists. The Telegraph's Henry Samuel was among the throng looking for action in the village. He found two brothers from Marseille who spent the night in a cave on the mountainside waiting for the vortex to open.

Although they never found the vortex, they did report seeing a bluish light in the cave in the middle of the night.  "It stopped, started to look at us, and rushed towards us," one of the brothers, identified as Laurent, told The Telegraph. "I had a feeling of ecstasy. It’s hard to describe. We had our fair dose and are on our way out."

Guillaume Horcajuelo / EPA

People gather in the French village of Bugarach on Friday while authorities block access to a nearby mountain.

The journalists are on their way out, too, leaving behind some miffed villagers. "What is going on here is the creation of an urban legend," Michele Pous told AP.

Pous blamed the folks who started the rumors: "They created a media frenzy, they created a false event, they manipulated people."

More about the non-apocalypse:

• New, doom-free era begins
• What about doomsday preppers?
• Year-end cartoon laughs at doomsday
• The Maya calendar's Big Day dawns
• Why NASA jumped the gun on doomsday
• Doomsday hot spots around the globe
• Video: 'We're very respectful of traditions'
• Cosmic Log archive on 2012 and doomsday fears

Alan Boyle is NBCNews.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter and adding the Cosmic Log page to your Google+ presence. To keep up with Cosmic Log as well as NBCNews.com's other stories about science and space, sign up for the Tech & Science newsletter, delivered to your email in-box every weekday. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.

This morning's report on TODAY recaps the no-show for the apocalypse, and the segment raises an interesting question: What about all those folks who were preparing for the sort of doomsday portrayed in the movie "2012"?

"Doomsday Preppers" is the top-rated show on the National Geographic Channel, and the show will stay on the air even though the Maya apocalypse was canceled. I'm betting that the preppers will keep prepping as well. In fact, the devastation caused by Superstorm Sandy demonstrates that it's wise to stock up on emergency gear and extra supplies even if you see absolutely no deeper meaning in a centuries-old calendar.

Most of the people concerned about the end times are not motivated by the Maya myth, but rather by biblical reference to the end times — or just a general sense that things are going to go south sometime soon. That came through clearly when Zap2it's Jacqueline Cutter chatted with some of the National Geographic Channel's preppers.

Braxton Southwick, a mechanic living in a Salt Lake City suburb, told Cutter that he was inspired by the 9/11 crisis.

"I don't want to see my kids go though horrible crap or gangs or starve," he says. "If you were told you were going to be in a concentration camp, you would say 'I am going to die.' But they fought to live. So I look at it that way. Human nature is to fight to live."

Do you know of anyone who's making preparations for a future doomsday? Are you a doomsday prepper yourself? Feel free to get your point across in the comment section below.

More about coping with disaster:

• PhotoBlog: Survivalists prepare for the end
• Ready.gov: How to build an emergency kit
• Are you prepared for the worst?
• Cosmic Log archive about 2012 and doomsday

Alan Boyle is NBCNews.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter and adding the Cosmic Log page to your Google+ presence. To keep up with Cosmic Log as well as NBCNews.com's other stories about science and space, sign up for the Tech & Science newsletter, delivered to your email in-box every weekday. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.

Hector Retamal / AFP - Getty Images

Guatemalan Mayan natives take part in celebrations marking the end of the Maya age at the Tikal archaeological site on Friday.

The sun has arisen today at Maya monuments in Mexico and Guatemala, heralding the completion of a 144,000-day calendar cycle — but not the end of the world.

Most archaeologists say the ancient Maya regarded sunrise as the signal for the turnover, much as we regard midnight on New Year's Eve as the time to party. And sure enough, tourists as well as modern-day Maya in traditional garb gathered at Chichen Itza's El Castillo pyramid in Mexico to greet the day. Josh Gates, host of the Syfy TV show "Destination Truth," is live-tweeting the activities. (Syfy is owned by NBC Universal, which also owns NBC News Digital.)

The ancient Maya calendar marks Dec. 21 as the end of a cycle known as a baktun, which lasts 144,000 days or nearly 400 years. This finishes up the 13th baktun since Year Zero for the Maya, and taken together, all that time represents an even longer 5,125-year cycle of creation. That led to speculation that the Maya expected the gods to reset the cosmos on Dec. 21. Somehow that speculation was taken seriously enough to whip up this whole end-of-the-world hype.

Along the way, all sorts of claims were made about unseen planets, solar disturbances and other supposed earth changes that would make today a very bad day. But judging from the pictures coming from Chichen Itza and other Maya monuments, people are having a good time today.

In the longer term, Maya community leaders hope all the attention they're getting this week will translate into a wider awareness of their ancient culture and their modern-day challenges. They're not worried about doomsday; they're worried about poverty. Check out this PhotoBlog posting for more about the real concerns being voiced by the indigenous people of Guatemala.

More about 2012:

• Solstice time, and all is well
• The Maya calendar's Big Day dawns
• Why NASA jumped the gun on doomsday
• Doomsday hot spots around the globe
• Video: 'We're very respectful of traditions'
• Cosmic Log archive on 2012 and doomsday fears

Alan Boyle is NBCNews.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter and adding the Cosmic Log page to your Google+ presence. To keep up with Cosmic Log as well as NBCNews.com's other stories about science and space, sign up for the Tech & Science newsletter, delivered to your email in-box every weekday. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.

During the buildup to 12/21/12, some people added an extra solstice twist to the Maya doomsday myth, contending that the precise time of the end of the world would be 11:11 UTC, or 6:11 a.m. ET. That's because the turnover date of the Maya Long Count calendar also happens to be the date of the December solstice, when winter starts in the Northern Hemisphere and summer begins in the Southern Hemisphere. Well, the solstice has occurred, and we're all still here.

What good is an apocalypse without a Twitter account? Mayan Apocalypse (@kabooooooooom)  has just chimed in with its first tweet: "Sorry everyone, running a bit late."

While we're waiting for further updates from Chichen Itza and elsewhere, check out JibJab's hilarious year-in-review video, with an end-of-the-world theme. And keep tabs on http://cosmiclog.msnbc.com/2012 for further updates as the day wears on.

More about the non-apocalypse:

• Doomsday questions rain down on NASA
• Look down on a genuine Maya apocalypse

Alan Boyle is NBCNews.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter and adding the Cosmic Log page to your Google+ presence. To keep up with Cosmic Log as well as NBCNews.com's other stories about science and space, sign up for the Tech & Science newsletter, delivered to your email in-box every weekday. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.