SpaceX's Dragon cargo capsule parachuted to a picture-perfect splashdown in the Pacific Ocean today, ending the first-ever commercial mission to the International Space Station.

The gumdrop-shaped Dragon made history last week as the first U.S. craft to reach the orbital station since last year's retirement of the space shuttle fleet, and it made history today as the first commercial craft to return a shipment from orbit.

SpaceX's 40-year-old billionaire founder, Elon Musk, told reporters that the nine-day space station resupply mission was "like a grand slam" in baseball, and repeatedly voiced joy and surprise at how well it went. "There are a thousand ways that it could fail, so this may sound sort of odd, but when you see it actually work, you're sort of surprised," he said.

The 14.4-foot-high (4.4-meter-high) capsule came down about 560 miles west of Baja California, within a mile of its target point, Musk said. When he saw the first pictures of the craft bobbing in the Pacific, he said his reaction was, "Welcome home, baby. ... It's like seeing your kid come home."

Michael Altenhofen / SpaceX via AP

A photo from SpaceX shows the Dragon spacecraft floating on the surface of the Pacific Ocean about 500 miles west of Mexico's Baja California today.

The demonstration flight will almost certainly earn a go-ahead for SpaceX to start space station resupply missions in earnest under the terms of a $1.6 billion contract with NASA. Alan Lindenmoyer, manager of NASA's commercial crew and cargo program, said a few more items needed to be marked off on the list of criteria, but he voiced nearly as much satisfaction about the results as Musk did.

"It is very easy to see that this satisfies, I believe, 100 percent of those criteria," he said. 

The demonstration flight began on May 22 with the Dragon's launch from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida, atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. The mission reached its climax last Friday when astronauts used the space station's robotic arm to pull the Dragon in to its docking port on the the station's Harmony module. On the following day, when station crew members entered the Dragon for the first time, NASA astronaut Don Pettit gushed over its new-car smell.

Over the days that followed, the station's crew unloaded a half-ton of food, equipment, experiments and other supplies — then loaded it back up with more than 1,300 pounds (620 kilograms) of non-essential Earth-bound shipments.

What happened today
Today, astronauts reversed the process they went through last week. The robotic arm pulled the Dragon out from its port and positioned it for release at 5:49 a.m. ET. SpaceX's craft then executed a series of engine burns to take itself out of the station's neighborhood and descend from orbit.

The final engine burn slowed the Dragon's orbital velocity by 100 meters per second (224 mph) — enough to drop it into a fiery descent through the atmosphere. The craft's bottom is coated with a layer of protective material called PICA-X, which SpaceX's engineers say is resilient enough to weather a return to Earth from Mars. At its peak, the heat shield had to endure temperatures in excess of 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit (1,650 degrees Celsius).

The suspense built during a few minutes of scheduled communication blackout, but eased when infrared imagery from airplanes circling the projected splashdown site showed the Dragon's parachutes opening. For some observers, the sight of the red-and-white main parachutes sprouting from the capsule sparked a flashback to the days of the Apollo moonshots.

Michael Altenhofen / SpaceX

A photo taken from a recovery ship shows the SpaceX Dragon's parachutes floating in the air after the cargo craft's splashdown.

At 11:42 a.m. ET, SpaceX's controllers confirmed that the craft made a successful splashdown. NASA mission commentator Josh Byerly observed that the Dragon mission "ended like it began — which is, fairly easily."

A pre-positioned flotilla of recovery ships loaded up the Dragon and will bring it back to Los Angeles, near SpaceX's headquarters in Hawthorne, Calif. Some high-value experimental payloads will be express-delivered to NASA within 48 hours; however, the bulk of Dragon's cargo will be taken off after it's transported to SpaceX's rocket test facility in MacGregor, Texas. This particular Dragon won't be reused for another NASA flight, but eventually SpaceX plans to refurbish the capsules as well as rocket stages. 

Over the past few years, NASA has paid out about $300 million to help SpaceX develop the Dragon and the Falcon 9 rocket. SpaceX has invested a similar amount of its own capital. This test mission should clear the way for SpaceX to start in on the $1.6 billion station resupply contract, which covers 12 flights through 2015. Musk said he expected the first full-fledged Dragon cargo run to lift off late this summer.

Another company, Virginia-based Orbital Sciences Corp., is working on an alternate commercial delivery system, but that system hasn't yet gone through flight testing.

Grand plans for NASA and SpaceX
Such deliveries are part of NASA's grand plan in the post-shuttle era to transfer space station resupply operations to commercial companies, at what is expected to be a cost far less expensive than space shuttle operations. Theoretically, that would free up money for NASA to concentrate on developing a more powerful heavy-lift rocket and a more capable Orion spacecraft for missions beyond Earth orbit — heading toward asteroids, the moon and eventually Mars.

SpaceX and three other companies — Blue Origin, the Boeing Co. and Sierra Nevada Corp. — are working on spacecraft capable of transporting astronauts to and from the station, and NASA expects those ships to be available for its use by 2017. SpaceX's crew-carrying craft will be an upgraded version of the Dragon that was used for the current cargo mission.

Musk said Dragon 2.0 would have a thruster system capable of making near-pinpoint, helicopter-style landings. That system is due for testing later this year, and could be ready for NASA in three to five years. Such a system would be a must-have for landings on other worlds, Musk noted.

Musk, a dot-com billionaire who made his fortune with PayPal,  founded SpaceX in 2002 as part of his own grand plan to help humans get to Mars and become a "multiplanet species."

Today he noted that the company, known more formally as Space Exploration Technologies Corp., is under contract for about 40 launches, including the 12 planned Dragon cargo missions for NASA as well as additional commercial launches. Just this week, SpaceX announced a deal with Intelsat to put a telecom satellite into geosynchronous transfer orbit using the Falcon Heavy rocket, which is still under development. SpaceX also hopes to win some launch contracts for the Falcon Heavy from the U.S. military.

Some veteran observers of the space effort, including Apollo moonwalkers Neil Armstrong and Gene Cernan, have been critical of NASA's move toward commercialization. Cernan, for example, complained to Congress that commercial space companies "don't know what they don't know." But Musk said the Dragon mission demonstrated that "commercial spaceflight can be successful." He voiced hope that SpaceX's efforts would inspire a new generation of engineers and explorers.

"We're really at the dawn of a new age of space exploration, where there's going to be a huge amount of opportunity and a lot of exciting things happening," Musk said.

NASA Administrator Charles Bolden expressed similar sentiment in a post-splashdown statement: "This successful splashdown and the many other achievements of this mission herald a new era in U.S. commercial spaceflight. American innovation and inspiration have once again shown their great strength in the design and operation of a new generation of vehicles to carry cargo to our laboratory in space. Now more than ever we're counting on the inventiveness of American companies and American workers to make the International Space Station and other low-Earth-orbit destinations accessible to any and all who have dreams of space travel."

More about the mission:

• Scenes from a SpaceX spectacular
• Space milestone sparks high praise
• Next steps in a new space race
• Cosmic Log archive on SpaceX

This item was last updated at 4 p.m. ET.

Alan Boyle is msnbc.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter or adding Cosmic Log's Google+ page to your circle. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for other worlds.

Moon Express

An artist's conception shows Moon Express' lunar lander.

One of the competitors in the race to send the first private-sector probe to the moon says it's acquired the assets of a rival team, marking what could be considered a "Netscape moment" for the commercial moonshot industry.

Moon Express said the acquisition of Colorado-based Next Giant Leap will add to its momentum in the $30 million Google Lunar X Prize competition, which promises a huge payoff to the first team that sends a rover to the moon for an exploratory trek that includes transmitting high-definition imagery back to Earth. Moon Express and Next Giant Leap are among 26 teams vying for the prize.

"There are many synergies between our companies," Bob Richards, Moon Express' co-founder and CEO, said in today's announcement, which was issued during a Google Lunar X Prize team summit in Washington. "We are all stronger together, and we look forward to carrying on the innovation and vision of the Next Giant Leap founders and partners."

Both ventures were selected by NASA in 2010 for data-sharing contracts that are worth up to $10 million each. Both companies have been working on rovers that would hop across the lunar surface. The Next Giant Leap effort produced a "hopper" design that attracted a $1 million commitment from the Charles Stark Draper Laboratory to fund the development of a guidance, navigation and control system testbed.

Richards told me that the relationship with Draper Lab on the control system "is perhaps the most obvious and strongest inheritance of the acquisition we will be actively working," but he also placed great value on the other partnerships that Next Giant Leap had forged over the past few years. Among those partners are Sierra Nevada Corp., MIT Space Systems Laboratory, Aurora Flight Services, Jolted Media Group, the Center for Space Entrepreneurship and the Challenger Center for Space Science Education. 

Richards said that the acquisition involved a payment to Next Giant Leap, but by mutual agreement, the amount would not be disclosed. Moon Express probably ranks among the more financially solid ventures chasing the Google Lunar X Prize, considering that one of the venture's co-founders is dot-com billionaire Naveen Jain. 

Next Giant Leap

An artist's conception shows Next Giant Leap's proposed lunar lander. Moon Express' Bob Richards said that his venture "will subsume Next Giant Leap designs to the extent possible and practical. ... The main hardware difference is that the Moon Express lander uses the NASA Common Spacecraft Bus heritage and the Next Giant Leap lander was based on the SNC Orbcomm bus."

Michael Joyce, founder and president of Next Giant Leap, said the acquisition serves as validation of his team's value, and as a testament to the dedication of his partners. "Next Giant Leap and its partners have made remarkable technical progress," he said in today's announcement. "We are proud to be able to offer that value in support of the vision and resources of Moon Express that continue our dreams toward the moon."

Richards said Joyce and another Next Giant Leap co-founder, Todd Mosher, have been invited to serve as advisers to Moon Express.

The Google Lunar X Prize is offering $20 million to the first team that lands a rover on the moon, sends it on an excursion of at least 500 meters and gets it to send high-definition images and video back to Earth. If a second team pulls off the same feat, that team would receive $5 million. Another $5 million is reserved for bonus prizes. The prizes expire if no team fulfills the requirements by the end of 2015, and if a government-backed lander beats the teams to the lunar surface, the grand prize would be reduced to $15 million.

Richards and Jain have said Moon Express intends to launch its lunar lander as early as 2014. 

More about the Google Lunar X Prize:

• Moon Express tests lunar telescope on Earth
• Rocketeers will obey NASA's rules for lunar missions
• SpaceX sells its first ticket for moon launch
• Gallery: The teams that are shooting for the moon

Alan Boyle is msnbc.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. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.

The My Galaxies website can be used to render any message using actual pictures of galaxies.

Want to see your name up in lights? How about harnessing galaxies to send a message? There's a website for that, thanks to University of Nottingham astronomer Steven Bamford and Galaxy Zoo's legions of virtual sky-searchers. "My Galaxies" lets you spell out anything you want, using real galaxies that are shaped like characters.

It's clear that Bamford's a character as well, judging by his blurb explaining what the project is all about. Galaxy Zoo participants have classified nearly a million galaxies from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, based on their shapes, and it turns out that some of those shapes happen to look like letters of the alphabet.

"Really?" Bamford asks rhetorically. "There are galaxies that look like letters? OK, S and Z I can believe, but M? H? R? Capitals or little letters? What about punctuation, or numbers? ... Well, there aren't many, but when you've got pictures of millions of galaxies and an energetic group of Zooites, there isn't much that can stay hidden!"

Zooites began using the odd-shaped galaxies for their own custom-made messages, and eventually Bamford and a colleague of his wrote a Web-based computer program to translate typed messages into Galaxese. T-R-Y  I-T  O-U-T!

By the way, if you want to say it with DNA molecules instead, Ed Yong can help you out at the "Not Exactly Rocket Science" blog.

More messages from outer space:

• Cosmic exclamation point sighted
• Hubble tracks down 'UFO Galaxy'
• Oh! Oh! A valentine from space
• Galaxies form cosmic question mark

Tip o' the Log to Universe Today's Jason Major.

Alan Boyle is msnbc.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. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.

B. Wei et al. / Wyss Institute, Harvard

This atomic-force microscopy shows 100 shapes, each created from tiles of DNA strands. Each shape takes up a space measuring 150 by 150 nanometers, or roughly one-thousandth the width of a human hair.

The DNA molecule serves as the code of life, but it also serves as handy building material for nanoscale structures — and newly published research shows how patterns as complex as letters, numbers and smiley faces can be created far more cheaply and quickly than previously thought.

Harvard researchers demonstrate the latest twists in this week's issue of the journal Nature. The process involves laying out short segments of DNA in a tile-shaped pattern determined by custom-designed chemical bonds. Those single-stranded tiles, in turn, can assemble themselves into larger shapes like Lego blocks, depending on how the bonds attach to one another. Different recipes for mixing the tiles together will produce different shapes.

The researchers — Bryan Wei, Mingjie Dai and Peng Yin — estimate that the process yielded the desired structure 12 to 17 percent of the time. That yield is far from perfect, but it could be perfectly acceptable for a process involving thousands upon thousands of self-assembling molecules.

The technique updates a construction strategy that was first pioneered in the 1980s. Back then, it took two years to create a 7-nanometer-wide cube from 10 strands of DNA, Caltech's Paul Rothemund and Aarhus University's Ebbe Sloth Andersen observed in a Nature commentary on the research. In contrast, the newly reported results suggest that far more complex shapes, measuring more than 100 nanometers across, could be churned out at an average rate of one per hour. (A human hair is roughly 100,000 nanometers wide.)

Another attractive factor has to do with the cost: An alternate method for creating nanoscale shapes, known as DNA origami, twists one long molecular strand into a desired shape rather than using lots of smaller tiles. But for each different shape, a new set of molecular "staples" has to be synthesized at a cost of roughly $1,000, according to the Nature commentary. The Harvard researchers' method involves creating a $7,000 set of tiles that could theoretically produce 2 X 10^93 shapes. That's a 2 followed by 93 zeros.

In their Nature paper, Wei and his colleagues showed off 100 shapes — including the Roman alphabet, numerical digits, punctuation marks, the peace sign, Chinese characters and 10 kinds of emoticons. They made use of a custom-designed computer program to aid in the design of the shapes and control the liquid-handling robot that mixed the DNA ingredients.

"This advance truly brings DNA nanotechnology into the rapid-prototyping age, and enables DNA shapes to be tailored for every experiment," Rothemund and Andersen wrote in their commentary.

One of the puzzles surrounding the research has to do with why it works so well. Experts had thought that when smaller strands of DNA were mixed together, they wouldn't come together correctly and completely to form the desired larger shapes. The authors suggested that the timing of the chemical reactions could be the key to their success. "It is conceivable that sparse and slow nucleation followed by fast growth allows complete assembly," they wrote.

Nature News quoted Yin as saying that "any technological applications are highly speculative" — but if the process can be extended to a mirror-image type of DNA that isn't broken down by cellular processes, it could lead to the development of nanoscale devices for drug delivery or molecular-scale medical monitoring. The researchers say they're in the midst of obtaining a provisional patent for the process.

In their commentary, Rothemund and Andersen compared DNA assembly to carpentry.

"Wei and colleagues' findings remind us that we are still just apprentice DNA carpenters, and will embolden others to mix hundreds of DNA strands together against prevailing wisdom," they wrote. "The results will probably surprise us."

More about molecular carpentry:

• DNA origami goes 3-D
• Slideshow: Making smileys out of DNA
• DNA robots pave way for micro-factories
• Scientists create atomic-scale Olympic rings
• Play a game and engineer real RNA

The research reported in Nature, "Complex Shapes Self-Assembled From Single-Stranded DNA Tiles," was funded by the Office of Naval Research, the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health and Harvard's Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering.

Alan Boyle is msnbc.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. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.

The organizers of the $30 million Google Lunar X Prize say their contestants will abide by NASA's appeal to stay away from the Apollo landing sites and other places where U.S. moon probes ended up.

Last week, NASA laid down its guidelines for private moon missions, with an eye toward preserving sites such as the place where Apollo 11 commander Neil Armstrong took "one small step" onto the lunar surface in 1969. Space agency officials were worried that visiting spacecraft could ruin the sites, or try to salvage some of the historic hardware, or kick up moondust to obscure the tracks that have lasted for four decades.

The X Prize program is offering a multimillion-dollar payoff for the first team to land on the moon, take a 500-meter trek and send back high-definition images. It's also offering bonuses for taking pictures of an Apollo landing site or other "Lunar Heritage" site. But the X Prize organizers promise to take NASA's rules into account when approving the mission plans for the 26 teams vying for the prize. That means an X Prize team won't be allowed to land within 2 kilometers (1.2 miles) of the Apollo 11 site, or send a rover any closer than 75 meters (246 feet).

One of the teams, Pittsburgh-based Astrobotic Technology, had planned to take a close look at Apollo 11's artifacts and footprints, but President John Thornton said the venture has shifted its primary target to the lunar north pole. "The most exciting and most meaningful thing for mankind to do on the moon is to find water ice at the pole," he told me today. Astrobotic is aiming to launch its Icebreaker mission on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket in October 2015. Because no NASA probes ever landed or crashed in the area, the venture won't have to worry about the guidelines, at least for its first lunar mission. 

Although NASA's lunar hardware is off-limits, Thornton said there's a "wild card" in the deck for potential moon targets. NASA's rules don't say anything about avoiding non-NASA probes, such as the Soviet Luna landers and Lunokhod rovers. In fact, at one time Astrobotic was talking with the current owner of Lunokhod 2, video-game developer and millionaire spaceflier Richard Garriott, about making an up-close inspection of the rover he bought from the Russians in 1993.

"You've got to inspect the goods, right?" Thornton joked.

More about moon missions:

• Gallery: The teams that are shooting for the moon
• SpaceX sells its first ticket for moon launch
• Moon telescope tested on Earth
• How to make the moon pay

Alan Boyle is msnbc.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter or adding Cosmic Log's Google+ page to your circle. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for other worlds.

Jugend Forscht

Sixteen-year-old Shouryya Ray, a student from Dresden who was born in Calcutta, submitted a paper proposing analytical solutions to two problems in particle dynamics.

A research paper that claims to fill in a gap in Isaac Newton's formulas for the physics of falling objects has drawn worldwide attention to a 16-year-old student in Germany, but physicists are reserving judgment until they've seen the proof.

The focus of the buzz is Shouryya Ray, an Indian-born student who won second prize this month in the math and informatics category for Germany's Jugend Forscht student science competition. Ray tackled a couple of longstanding puzzlers for physics students: How do you account for air resistance in calculating the trajectory of ball thrown out at an angle? And precisely how does a ball thrown against the wall rebound?

The first question relates to Newton's law of universal gravitation: In his Principia Mathematica, published in 1687, Newton laid out how a gravitational field would affect a thrown object — but he didn't account for the effect of air resistance. Through the centuries, physicists have used numerical approximations to take drag into account, and when computers come into play, those approximations can be incredibly precise. But Ray said he wanted to come up with a set of formulas that could calculate the effect directly, even though his instructors said that had never been done.

"I asked myself: Why can't it work?" he told the German newspaper Die Welt.

That's what Ray tried to do in his prize-winning paper, titled "Analytical Solution of Two Fundamental Unsolved Problems of Particle Dynamics" ("Analytische Lösung von zwei ungelösten fundamentalen Partikeldynamikproblemen"). In addition to the falling-ball problem, Ray took on a puzzler of more recent vintage, having to do with the description of a particle's collision with a wall, as described by 19th-century theory. But it was the "kid-trumps-Newton" angle that really stirred up a buzz.

Die Welt's report came early in the game: The Daily Mail and The Sunday Times of London picked up the story, adding to the sensation. The idea that a teenager could figure out something that Newton didn't is irresistible — particularly when the teen is an immigrant from Calcutta who says he's no genius. But the story just sparked more questions among inquiring minds in such online hangouts as Physics Forum, Slashdot and Reddit: What exactly did Ray do? And were these problems really such mysteries to solve?

That's a challenge, because Ray's paper was a school project submitted for a contest, and thus not subject to the publication process and peer review that professional work typically goes through. For that reason, the experts are reluctant to weigh in.

"This story seems rather suspicious," Richard Fitzpatrick, a physicist at the University of Texas in Austin, told me in an email. "None of the news reports give any details of the calculation. None of the people who hailed Shouryya Ray as a genius are scientists, and none of them give the impression that they have seen the calculation in question. It is impossible to gauge the scientific merit of the calculation until it is made public."

Syracuse University physicist Simon Catterall said in an email that calculating the trajectories of falling objects hadn't been seen as a particularly grand puzzle of physics. "The background given in the article seems genuine enough, so it may indeed be true, but I haven't heard anything about a new solution to a Newtonian problem on the grapevine," he told me.

Based on what's come out about the work so far, the consensus seems to be that Ray has done amazing work for his age — and if he had to choose between his passion for science and his passion for soccer, he'd be well-advised to pick math and physics. His paper putting forth an "analytical solution to two fundamental unsolved problems" may not be the breakthrough that some of the reports have made it out to be, but that doesn't take anything away from the teenager's achievement.

"What Ray has worked out, almost certainly independently, would definitely put him in the 99th percentile amongst his peers and maybe even more," one Redditor observed.

By the way, the first-place winner in the math and informatics category, Julius Kunze, wrote a paper on relativistic ray tracing. But that's a different story... 

Update for 5 p.m. ET: Other experts on Newtonian physics have replied to my follow-up queries via email:

Oxford University physicist James Binney: "Doesn't sound too interesting to me. The resistance of air to the ball won't be susceptible to simple analytic formulae — if the ball is of ordinary size, [greater than a centimeter] radius — the flow around it will be in the high Reynolds-number regime and involve a thin boundary layer. Such flows were extensively studied from the last part of the 19th century, so it's true that they lie beyond Newton's knowledge. A good approximation will be to take the drag force as pi r^2 rho v^2, where r is the radius of the ball, v its speed and rho the density of air. I'm unaware of a puzzle regarding bouncing balls. In detail the bounce will depend on the physical properties of the ball — as any squash player knows. Usually one adopts a coefficient of restitution. To be impressed we need to know details."

University of Bristol physicist Michael Berry: "Without seeing the details of what Ray has claimed, it's impossible to comment intelligently. It depends crucially on how he has modeled the air resistance. But a falling body with air resistance (however modeled) is hardly a 'fundamental unsolved problem,' as he seems to think. There's a powerful aroma of hype."  

More about physics:

• Laws of physics get bent to produce ... coneheads!
• Subatomic discovery pushes the limits of physics
• The fish that nearly sank Newton's career
• Cosmic Log archive on physics

Alan Boyle is msnbc.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter or adding Cosmic Log's Google+ page to your circle. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for other worlds.

Today's first post-shuttle visit to the International Space Station by a U.S.-made spaceship won high-level praise from the White House, NASA Headquarters, Congress and other circles. Here's a sampling of the reaction:

White House science adviser John Holdren:

"For the first time, a private American company has successfully launched a spacecraft into orbit and berthed it with the International Space Station — an achievement of historic scientific and technological significance and a key milepost in President Obama’s vision for America’s continued leadership in space. 

"That is exactly what the president had in mind when he laid out a fresh course for NASA to explore new scientific frontiers and take Americans ever deeper into our solar system while relying on private-sector innovators — working in the competitive free market — to ferry astronauts and cargo to low Earth orbit and the International Space Station. It’s essential we maintain such competition and fully support this burgeoning and capable industry to get U.S. astronauts back on American launch vehicles as soon as possible.

"I could not be prouder of our scientists and engineers — both government and private sector employees—who have contributed to this historic mission.   A passion for discovery and a sense for adventure have always driven this nation forward, and I join all Americans in watching what future possibilities are enabled by today’s great achievement."

"Today marks another critical step in the future of American spaceflight. Now that a U.S. company has proven its ability to resupply the space station, it opens a new frontier for commercial opportunities in space — and new job creation opportunities right here in the U.S. By handing off space station transportation to the private sector, NASA is freed up to carry out the really hard work of sending astronauts farther into the solar system than ever before. The Obama administration has set us on an ambitious path forward and the NASA and SpaceX teams are proving they are up to the task." 

Apollo 11 moonwalker Buzz Aldrin (quoted in White House reaction roundup):

"This week’s successful launch and delivery of logistics supplies to the International Space Station by a U.S. commercial space company reminds us that where the entrepreneurial interests of the private sector are aligned with NASA’s mission to explore, America wins.  Falcon 9’s maiden flight to ISS — and the other commercial space launches that lie ahead — represent the dawn of a new era in space exploration.  Nearly 43 years after we first walked on the moon, we have taken another step in demonstrating continued American leadership in space."

U.S. Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson, D-Texas, ranking member of House Committee on Science, Space and Technology (quoted in a reaction roundup from House Democrats):

"If the promise of the International Space Station is to be achieved, it is essential that a reliable and cost-effective means to transport cargo to the ISS be available. Today's successful berthing of SpaceX's Dragon capsule to the ISS is an important step on the path to demonstrating operational commercial cargo transport support for the ISS. I want to congratulate NASA and SpaceX and their dedicated and talented employees on this significant accomplishment. I wish SpaceX and NASA continued success with this cargo demonstration flight and look forward to the successful return of the unmanned Dragon capsule.  I also look forward to Orbital's own upcoming demonstration flight."

Michael Lopez-Alegria, president, Commercial Spaceflight Federation:

"Tomorrow the six astronauts currently aboard the International Space Station will open the hatches to the first visiting vehicle from a private company. Future commercial cargo deliveries under NASA’s COTS and CRS programs will ensure that the ISS continues to be a resource for America and its international partners.

"This is truly a momentous accomplishment for SpaceX and for the industry. The capabilities of the commercial space industry grow by the day, and America is well on its way to having a diverse, cost-effective and dependable space transportation system. The entire team at SpaceX should be commended for their commitment and skill, and thanked for their contribution to restoring U.S. access to the space station."

Stuart Witt, CEO, Mojave Air and Space Port:

“Having attending the first launch attempt last Saturday morning, it was obvious a new day is dawning in American and international space access.  The combined electric atmosphere displayed by NASA leadership and working-level engineers side by side with the SpaceX’s private space industry leadership could not be missed.  It is real, and welcomed by all parties.   The successes demonstrated by SpaceX ... are a testament to what is possible. Our domestic and international partners are watching in stunned awe as SpaceX ticks off an impressive set of firsts right before our eyes!  While many continue to point to how things used to be and strive to bring them back, it is time for all to be mindful of the pioneers who blazed a trail before us, celebrate the success of the public/private team assembled today and look to the future for new and creative ways to achieve our space exploration goals for all humanity.  We need sound public policy which enables creativity by the private sector going forward, while continuing to take full advantage of the many lessons learned from public investment."

Christine Anderson, executive director, New Mexico Spaceport Authority:

"It's not every day you get to witness history in the making. The successful on-orbit rendezvous of the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft with the ISS is a watershed moment for the U.S. commercial spaceflight industry. All of us at Spaceport America salute SpaceX for their groundbreaking achievement. We send our congratulations to Elon Musk and the entire SpaceX team, and wish them continued success of their mission."

Frank DiBello, president, Space Florida:

“The State of Florida is so proud to be the launching place of SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket and the Dragon capsule that made today’s ISS docking exercise possible. We are thrilled that Florida continues to shine as the birthplace of next-generation U.S. commercial space launch and exploration initiatives — as it has been for the past 50+ years. We congratulate SpaceX on today’s historic achievement."

Elizabeth Wagner, senior vice president for strategic partnerships, Space Foundation:

"This week, SpaceX not only successfully launched the first commercial space transportation vehicle to dock with the International Space Station, but also marked a place in history that will forever be remembered as the true commercialization of space — the pivotal moment when private industry replaced government to form the new space economy. We salute SpaceX for its groundbreaking accomplishment, and look forward to the innovation and space technology advancements this paradigm shift will enable."

Rick Tumlinson, co-founder, Space Frontier Foundation (in a foundation reaction roundup):

"Now is the time to double down on U.S. industry and increase funding for the Commercial Crew Program to allow multiple companies to demonstrate commercial orbital human spaceflight early in the second half of this decade. [SpaceX founder] Elon Musk had a vision and his team has carried it to fruition. Other U.S. industries have shown this model works and now we have clear proof that space is no different. Visionaries, dreamers and entrepreneurs have opened frontiers in the past, and they will open the final frontier of space as well. Let's realize these visions by fully funding Commercial Crew."

More about the mission:

• Space station grabs a 'Dragon by the tail'
• 'Star Trek' Scotty's remains go into space
• Scenes from a SpaceX spectacular
• Next steps in a new space race
• Cosmic Log archive on SpaceX

Alan Boyle is msnbc.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter or adding Cosmic Log's Google+ page to your circle. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for other worlds.

NASA via Reuters

The SpaceX Dragon commercial cargo craft is in free drift above the International Space Station as the Canadarm 2 robotic arm reaches out in preparation to grab it.

Today's arrival of a cargo spaceship at the International Space Station wasn't your typical outer-space delivery run: It was an emotional experience for many of the folks who watched NASA's webcast of the SpaceX Dragon's approach.

"I'm not going to lie, I'm a little choked up right now," Discovery News' Ian O'Neill wrote in a Twitter update. "But I suppose that happens when you watch history unfold."

The event marked the first time since the space shuttle fleet's retirement that a spaceship made in the USA linked up with the space station, and the first arrival of a private-sector ship at an orbital destination. If NASA has its way, this is what American spaceflight will look like for years to come. So take a good look at these pictures from the first Dragon flight to the space station. You'll be seeing a lot more like them.

NASA via Reuters

The SpaceX Dragon commercial cargo craft is seen with part of the International Space Station in the foreground as it holds its position 30 meters (98 feet) away.

NASA via Reuters

Flight controllers at SpaceX Mission control in Hawthorne, Calif., work with the International Space Station crew as the Dragon commercial cargo craft goes through tests in advance of its capture and berthing.

NASA TV

The thermal imager on SpaceX's Dragon cargo craft provided this image of the International Space Station from 250 meters away.

NASA via AP

A camera on the International Space Station shows SpaceX's Dragon cargo craft, grappled by the station's robotic arm.

NASA TV via AP

The SpaceX Dragon commercial cargo craft is held in place by the space station's robotic arm.

More about the mission:

• Space station grabs a 'Dragon by the tail'
• 'Star Trek' Scotty's remains launched on SpaceX rocket
• Next steps in a new space race
• Cosmic Log archive on SpaceX

Alan Boyle is msnbc.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter or adding Cosmic Log's Google+ page to your circle. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for other worlds.

The International Space Station's crew reached out today with a robotic arm to grab SpaceX's Dragon cargo capsule and brought it in for the orbital outpost's first-ever hookup with a commercial spaceship.

It marks the station's first linkup with a U.S.-made spacecraft since last year's retirement of NASA's space shuttle fleet, and potentially opens the way for dozens of commercial cargo shipments. If the long-range plan unfolds as NASA hopes, U.S. astronauts could be shuttled back and forth on the Dragon or similar spacecraft within just a few years.

"Today, this really is the beginning of a new era in commercial spaceflight," said Alan Lindenmoyer, manager of NASA's commercial crew and cargo program. 

• Scenes from a SpaceX spectacular
• Space milestone sparks high praise

The hookup comes after Tuesday's successful launch of the Dragon atop a Falcon 9 rocket, and represents the culmination of years of planning and hundreds of millions of dollars of spending by NASA and California-based SpaceX, known more formally as Space Exploration Technologies Corp. The company was founded a decade ago by dot-com billionaire Elon Musk, with aspirations of eventually sending humans to settle on Mars.

Musk said the technologies that were tested today will blaze a trail for those more ambitious trips to come. "This is a crucial step, and having achieved this step, it makes the things in the future and the ultimate path toward humanity becoming a multiplanet species much, much more likely," he told reporters after the hookup. "The chances of that happening just went up dramatically, so people should be really excited about that."

But first things first: Today's operation marked the first full in-space test of the robotic Dragon spacecraft's procedure for approaching the station, and for that reason, every step along the way was carefully planned out and checked over the course of several hours. The first steps in the procedure were tested on Thursday, during a series of maneuvers that successfully brought the 14-foot-long, 12-foot-wide, gumdrop-shaped capsule within 2.5 kilometers (1.5 miles) of the $100 billion space station.

Today, a far more ambitious set of maneuvers brought the Dragon all the way to the station — but the trip wasn't always easy.

Fixing the glitches
The craft started out by taking up a position 250 meters (820 feet) below the station. From that vantage point, the Dragon was put through a series of maneuvers to test the station-to-spacecraft communication system. The space station's astronauts had the Dragon approach, then retreat, then approach, then hold its position.

After assessing the data, NASA said it wanted to do a double-check on the Dragon's thermal imagers, which are part of the rendezvous sensor system. The spacecraft was commanded to approach to a distance of 200 meters (656 feet), then stop while NASA took stock again. Space agency spokesman Josh Byerly said SpaceX's team made "minor modifications" to the thermal imaging system, just to make sure that it was providing tracking data in line with what other instruments were showing.

The Dragon was on its way to a 30-meter (98-foot) checkpoint when the team at SpaceX's Mission Control in Hawthorne, Calif., ordered the spacecraft to retreat to a distance of 70 meters (230 feet). NASA's Mission Control said the SpaceX team wanted to correct bad laser sensor readings that the Dragon was getting from a stray reflector on the station's Japanese-built Kibo laboratory. To work around the problem, SpaceX narrowed the field of view for the laser sensor so that it wouldn't pick up light from the offending reflector.

"One of the lasers wasn't working well, so we had to recalibrate the laser and tighten the beam, and then it did work," Musk explained afterward.

Catching a Dragon by the tail
Once the fix was made, Dragon returned to the 30-meter checkpoint and moved in for the final approach. When the craft reached a distance of 10 meters (33 feet), NASA astronaut Don Pettit used the station's 17-meter-long (60-foot-long) robotic arm to grab hold of the Dragon's grapple attachment at 9:56 a.m. ET.

"It looks like we've got us a Dragon by the tail," Pettit told NASA's Mission Control.

"“Congratulations on a wonderful capture," Mission Control's Megan Behnken replied. "“You've made a lot of folks happy down here, over in Hawthorne and right here in Houston." 

Pettit joked that the operation went so smoothly it felt like a computer simulation. "This sim went really well," he said. "We're ready to turn it around and do it for real." 

It took another couple of hours to pull in the Dragon and get it fully hooked up to the station's Harmony module. NASA and SpaceX refer to this operation as a "berthing" rather than a "docking," because the Dragon is being passively pulled in rather than powering itself into the docking port.

The completion of berthing at 12:02 p.m. ET put SpaceX in the company of four governmental space ventures — NASA, the Russian Federal Space Agency, the European Space Agency and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency — that have built vehicles capable of hooking up with the space station.

Musk said that he'd probably have to relax SpaceX's rule against drinking alcohol at its Hawthorne headquarters to accommodate a champagne celebration, but it was clear that the hundreds of employees who gathered to watch the berthing were already on a natural high. They cheered for Musk as he spoke to reporters over a video link — and when he told them, "I love you guys, too," they broke into a chant of "E-lon, E-lon, E-lon!" 

Unloading the cargo
Dragon's hatch is scheduled to be opened early Saturday morning. The station's six astronauts will unload about 1,000 pounds (460 kilograms) of cargo, including food, clothes, batteries and a laptop, plus 15 student-designed experiments. Then about 1,455 pounds (660 kilograms) of Earth-bound cargo — including personal items from the crew as well as completed experiments and old equipment — will be loaded up on the Dragon. These payloads don't come anywhere close to the Dragon's capacity (6 tons going up, 3 tons coming down), but they were made part of the mission as non-essential ride-alongs.

On May 31, the capsule will be detached from the station and sent back down toward a Pacific Ocean splashdown and recovery off the coast of Southern California. That part of the operation went off successfully during Dragon's first orbital test mission in December 2010, but this would mark the first-ever return of a commercial spacecraft from the space station. Russia's Soyuz capsule is the only other existing space vehicle capable of returning space station payloads.

A fully successful mission would open the way for commercial space station resupply missions to begin in earnest. SpaceX already has a $1.6 billion contract with NASA for 12 Dragon shipments through 2016. If all goes well, the first flight covered by that contract could lift off in September, said Mike Suffredini, NASA's space station program manager. Another company, Virginia-based Orbital Sciences Corp., is developing a cargo spacecraft known as Cygnus to take on space station shipments as well, under the terms of a $1.9 billion contract. The Cygnus has yet to be flight-tested, however.

In addition to the cargo contract, SpaceX is one of four companies that is receiving millions of dollars from NASA to produce spaceships capable of carrying astronauts. In SpaceX's case, the Dragon would be modified with a launch escape system, while the other companies — Blue Origin, the Boeing Co. and Sierra Nevada Corp. — are working on other spaceship concepts, ranging from capsules to Sierra Nevada's mini-space plane. The first astronaut flights could take place as early as 2017.

Until that time, NASA will have to depend on the Russians to transport U.S. astronauts on Soyuz spacecraft, at a cost of more than $60 million a seat. SpaceX and other players in the commercial space race say they can meet or beat that price.

The transition to commercial operations for orbital transport is a key part of the Obama administration's plan for future space exploration.

"We’re handing off to the private sector our transportation to the International Space Station so that NASA can focus on what we do best — exploring even deeper into our solar system, with missions to an asteroid and Mars on the horizon," NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said after the Dragon's launch. "We’re committed to ending the outsourcing of work on America’s space program and bringing these jobs back to the United States." 

More about the mission:

• 'Star Trek' Scotty's remains go into space
• Video: Scenes from the SpaceX hookup
• Next steps in a new space race
• Cosmic Log archive on SpaceX

Alan Boyle is msnbc.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter or adding Cosmic Log's Google+ page to your circle. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for other worlds.

Sandro Vannini / National Geographic

This "shabti," or funerary servant figure, is from the antechamber of Tutankhamun's tomb. Shabtis were inscribed with a spell from the Book of the Dead that ensured the king would do no forced labor in the afterlife. The figure is part of the "Tutankhamun: The Golden King and the Great Pharaohs," an exhibit that is winding up its U.S. tour in Seattle.

Two major exhibits of ancient artifacts relating to the best-known figures from ancient Egypt, King Tut and Cleopatra, are in the last stages of their U.S. tours — and their departure could signal the end of an era.

"Cleopatra: The Exhibition" opened at the California Science Center in Los Angeles on Wednesday, while "Tutankhamun: The Golden King and the Great Pharaohs" began its run at the Pacific Science Center in Seattle today. By the end of next year, the more than 250 artifacts from the two exhibitions will be back in Egypt, possibly for good.

The return to Egypt marks the end of a Tut-centric "Comeback Tour" that began back in 2005 and sparked the kind of enthusiasm that was seen back in the 1970s, during an earlier Tut exhibit. Like that 1976-1979 "Treasures of Tutankhamun" show, millions have turned out to see the glittering gold and the 3,300-year-old artifacts associated with the boy-king's short reign. More than 90,000 advance tickets already have been sold for this year's Seattle exhibit.

Transplanting Tut-mania
Among the featured objects in Seattle are a 10-foot-tall statue of the pharaoh, Tut's golden sandals and the golden funerary mask of King Psusennes I. (Tut's golden mask, which was such a hit since the '70s, was judged too fragile and valuable to travel out of Egypt this time around.)

After Seattle, the more than 100 artifacts will go to the Grand Egyptian Museum in Giza, which is currently under construction and due for completion in 2015. At one time, Egyptian officials saw the revenue generated by traveling exhibits as a means to cover the museum construction costs. But last year's revolution dealt a heavy blow to the country's tourist industry, and now officials think it's more important to bring museumgoers to the treasures in Egypt than to bring the treasures to museumgoers outside Egypt.

"They're eager to see these [artifacts] return to Egypt," said Bryan Harris, vice president of sales and marketing for Arts and Exhibitions International, which helped organize the Tut tour. And they're eager for tourists to follow Tut's trail.

That came through loud and clear during a Seattle news conference on Wednesday. "Please, we need your help," Antiquities Minister Mohammed Ibrahim said. "We need you to support our revolution. We need you to support our movement toward peace and democracy."

Cleopatra's sunken treasures
The stars of the Tut exhibit are artifacts that were found 90 years ago in a long-hidden tomb by British archaeologist Howard Carter, but it's a different story for the more than 150 "Cleopatra" artifacts now on display in Los Angeles. They were brought to the surface just in the past few years during underwater excavations at the sunken sites of Alexandria, Heracleion and Canopus.

"All those artifacts were completely covered by sediment," French archaeologist Franck Goddio, leader of the underwater excavation, told me.

Slideshow: In search of Cleopatra’s palace

Christoph Gerigk / AP

Divers explore the submerged ruins of a palace and temple in Alexandria's harbor.

Launch slideshow

The project made a splash, so to speak, when the "Cleopatra" tour was first announced a couple of years ago, and since then it's been on display in Philadelphia, Cincinnati and Milwaukee. One more U.S. city, yet to be determined, could join the list after Los Angeles. But by the end of 2013, the statues, jewelry, coins and other items will be distributed among several Egyptian museums, Goddio said. Egyptian authorities are considering the construction of an underwater museum in Alexandria Harbor, and if that project goes forward, "all the artifacts will go in that museum," he said.

Goddio said the artifacts recovered so far suggest that Hellenistic Egypt, the culture in which Cleopatra lived during the first century B.C., was less Greek and much more Egyptian than experts previously thought. "The Egyptian sensitivity is much stronger than what it was thought to be at that time," he said. And that's all the more reason for present-day Egyptian officials to want those treasures back in their home country.

Fortunately, Goddio and others have been able to continue their work amid all of Egypt's political changes, including the run-up to this week's presidential elections there.

"Up to now, the authority has not changed," he told me, "and it's not expected that there will be any change from a scientific view." So even though the long-traveling treasures may be going home for good, there might be fresh archaeological finds available for future road trips.

And after all, Egypt isn't the only place that offers archaeological wonders. Just this month, for example, Penn Museum opened a "Maya 2012" exhibit featuring sculptures and replicas of monuments from the Maya civilization.

Harris acknowledges that Egypt doesn't hold a monopoly on ancient mysteries and marvels. Nevertheless, he says there's something special about old King Tut. "An exhibit like 'Tutankhamun' is really like lightning in a bottle," he told me. "For some reason, Egyptian culture, and particularly Tutankhamun, seems to captivate the imagination more than any other. ... To be honest, there's only one."

More about Egyptian treasures:

• 'King Tut' makes last stop in Seattle
• Spots on Tut's tomb suggest hasty burial
• Slideshow: King Tut's treasures in context
• Mummies and statues point to Cleopatra's tomb
• Video: Book paints Cleopatra as 'shrewd' and 'brutal'

Alan Boyle is msnbc.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter or adding Cosmic Log's Google+ page to your circle. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for other worlds.

Ted Huetter / Museum of Flight

Blue Origin's jet-powered Charon test vehicle is brought inside Seattle's Museum of Flight.

Blue Origin, the rocket venture backed by Amazon.com billionaire founder Jeff Bezos, is sharing a 9,500-pound hunk of its little-known history — in the form of its first flying vehicle, a jet-powered lander prototype known as Charon.

The behemoth went on display this week in the Charles Simonyi Space Gallery at Seattle's Museum of Flight, which will also house a full-scale space shuttle training mockup.

Before this week, few folks outside Bezos' venture ever heard of Charon. The takeoff-and-landing platform was powered by four vertically mounted jet engines — and flew only once, on March 5, 2005, in Moses Lake, Wash. It rose to a height of 316 feet, then settled back down to a controlled landing.

Charon was moved into the museum on Tuesday and unveiled to the public on Wednesday.

"We are proud to share this piece of our company history with the Museum of Flight," Rob Meyerson, president and program manager of Blue Origin, said in a statement released by the company. "By making the original Charon vehicle available for public viewing, we hope to educate and inspire the next generation of aerospace explorers."

The technologies pioneered by Charon were applied to Blue Origin's vertical-takeoff-and-landing rocket ships — including the Goddard prototype that flew for the first time in November 2006 at Bezos' Texas spaceport, and the more capable test craft that followed. Last year, Blue Origin sent its prototype craft for suborbital space missions up to an altitude of 45,000 feet at supersonic speed — but Bezos reported that the flight had to be terminated with the loss of the vehicle, due to a flight instability that cropped up during the test. 

Blue Origin

The jet-powered Charon lander prototype rises during a test flight in 2005.

Ted Huetter / Museum of Flight

Blue Origin's Charon lander prototype is settled in its spot inside the museum.

Blue Origin is working on a new prototype for its suborbital space program, which aims to carry passengers and research payloads beyond the 100-kilometer (62-mile) boundary of outer space. At the same time, it's receiving millions of dollars from NASA to help with the development of an orbital space vehicle that could service the International Space Station.

Historically, Bezos and Blue Origin have played their cards close to the vest — but in recent months, the venture has been more open about its ambitions and its progress. That's in line with the model being set by another space-minded billionaire, Elon Musk, the founder of California-based SpaceX.

Seattle's Museum of Flight stands to benefit because Blue Origin and Amazon.com are both headquartered in the Seattle area. "Blue Origin is making incredible strides in bringing commercial space travel to fruition," Douglas King, the museum's president and CEO, said in the statement. "Charon is an exciting addition to our extensive collection of historically significant air- and spacecraft. The fact that it comes from a company in our hometown makes it even more prestigious."

King is angling to acquire artifacts from other space ventures, ranging from SpaceX to the Boeing Co. Seattle-area software billionaire Charles Simonyi has already donated a used Russian Soyuz spacecraft for display. The piece de resistance will be the shuttle mockup, known more formally as the Full Fuselage Trainer, which is currently in the midst of being transported to the museum from NASA's Johnson Space Center. The trainer is expected to be assembled in its new home by the end of the summer.

More ventures backed by space billionaires:

• Jeff Bezos aims to bring up Apollo 11's sunken engines
• Billionaires back Seattle-based asteroid mining project
• SpaceX billionaire Elon Musk elated by successful launch
• Billionaire Paul Allen plans monster plane for space launches

Correction for noon ET May 25: I originally wrote that Charon was pronounced "CARE-on," like the name of the mythical Greek ferryman of the underworld. Actually, Blue Origin's Charon was named after Pluto's largest moon. That suggests that the name should be pronounced "SHAR-on," for reasons I explain on page 56 of "The Case for Pluto." 

Alan Boyle is msnbc.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. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.

JP Aerospace

A 2-inch-long paper model of a 1960s-era Gemini capsule hangs from a string in front of a camera mounted on a balloon-borne platform at an altitude of more than 97,000 feet. Meanwhile, the moon hangs in the far background, sans string.

So what if it's only a paper spaceship? This year marks the 50th anniversary of Project Gemini's christening, and you could regard this small-scale re-creation of a Gemini space mission as a fitting tribute to the times.

The original 19-foot-long Gemini spacecraft was built to accommodate two astronauts for missions that would lay the groundwork for the Apollo missions to the moon. This 2-inch-long Gemini model was built by John's Paper Models and hung from a string during one of JP Aerospace's high-altitude balloon flights in Nevada's Black Rock Desert.

"The model was flown to 97,704 feet on balloon during last month's PongSat mission. 980 student experiments were also flown," John Powell, the founder of JP Aerospace, told me in an email. The California-based venture sends payloads up to the edge of space at the end of a helium-filled balloon, and recovers the payloads after the balloon breaks.

The payloads range from mini-experiments that can fit inside a pingpong ball — hence the name "PongSat" — to the occasional chair or cellphone. These flights don't come anywhere close to the internationally accepted 62-mile (100-kilometer) boundary of outer space, but they do rise high enough to provide exposure to cosmic rays, the near-vacuum of near space and other conditions that can put space hardware to a rigorous test. And as you can see here, the flights provide an awesome view as well.

JP Aerospace

JP Aerospace's "Away 66" mission rises. The tiny model of the Gemini capsule can be seen hanging from the left side of the balloon-borne platform.

Meanwhile, another near-space mission has successfully sent "Star Trek" captains and celebrities into space, at least in miniaturized, plasticized action-figure form. StarTrek.com provides a photo essay chronicling the results of this month's "Send Picard to Space" balloon mission, backed by more than $6,000 in Kickstarter contributions. "The captains and equipment spent two hours aloft, 90 minutes of that in the stratosphere, until the balloon popped and the payload parachuted safely back to Earth," StarTrek.com reported. Stay tuned for the encore presentation. 

More adventures in near space:

• Balloons built for future frontiers
• Teens send toy above the clouds
• Twin-balloon airship hits high frontier
• Students reach high for launch photos

Alan Boyle is msnbc.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter or adding Cosmic Log's Google+ page to your circle. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for other worlds.

Alan Boyle / msnbc.com

SETI astronomer Jill Tarter looks out from the radio dish named after her at the Allen Telescope Array in northern California. The array's 42 linked dishes search for signals from extraterrestrial civilizations.

The real-life astronomer who inspired the central character in "Contact," the book and movie about the search for extraterrestrial intelligence, is retiring from her research post at the age of 68. But that doesn't mean Jill Tarter is giving up on the SETI quest. Instead, she's focusing on the search for funding for the non-profit SETI Institute.

For most of the institute's 28-year history, Tarter has been serving as director of the Center for SETI Research as well as holding the Bernard M. Oliver Chair for SETI. "I've worn two hats," she explained. Now she's passing along the center's top research hat to physicist Gerry Harp, a colleague at the institute — and wearing the Oliver Chair hat full-time as a fundraiser.

"We have got to get this endeavor stably funded," she told me.

Tarter knows as well as anyone on Earth how much of a challenge that will be. In the 1980s and 1990s, she participated in NASA-funded efforts to search for alien radio signals — efforts that drew intense fire from some members of Congress. The fire became so intense that NASA as well as the National Science Foundation were barred from funding SETI research in 1993. To keep hope alive, Tarter spearheaded a program to continue the search with private donations.

Breakthrough ... then, a bummer
A breakthrough came in 2007 with the dedication of the 42-antenna Allen Telescope Array in Northern California, a facility funded with $25 million in seed money from software billionaire Paul Allen and matching funds from other contributors. The SETI Institute partnered with the University of California at Berkeley to operate the array, and it looked as if the search for alien signals was finally on stable footing.

That didn't last long, however.

Berkeley had to drop out of the partnership due to money troubles. Last year, the institute mothballed the array and put out a plea for $200,000 in contributions to restart operations. "That certainly put an exclamation point on the funding crisis," Tarter said. The money was raised in a month and a half — thanks in part to a big financial and moral vote of support from actress-director Jodie Foster, who played the Tarter character (named Ellie Arroway) in the movie version of "Contact."

Now the telescope array is back in business with a new partner, SRI International, which maintains the facility in return for getting half of the array's observing time to track satellites and orbital debris for the U.S. Air Force. But Tarter wants to get the institute's SETI effort out of its scrimp-and-scrape mode. "Lots of startups do that, but they don't last very long if they don't get secure funding," she said.

One of Tarter's top objectives is to build up an endowment for SETI research. "I find it very interesting that at any one time, even in this economy, there are endowment campaigns of $100 million. We could be one of them," she said.

Stable funding would reassure the researchers who work with the institute that they'll be able to pursue their projects over the long term, Tarter said. "We have to make this a real destination for folks who want to do visionary things. ... They're in some sense hanging on a cliff, because there's no guaranteed scientific payoff, although there are lots of interesting instrumentation payoffs along the way," she said.

New twists for SETI
Lots of interesting twists are in store for the SETI quest. For example, researchers are working their way through a list of hundreds of candidate planets identified by NASA's Kepler mission. Tarter said about 10 percent of the Kepler field has been surveyed so far, at a rate of 30 targets a day.

"We don't yet have Earth 2.0, but we almost can taste it," she said. "That will change the whole approach. Does anybody live there? That's going to concretize so many things which are now a bit abstract."

The institute is already using a survey setup that checks three star systems at once for telltale patterns in radio emissions that could hint at an artificial source. The setup, known as SonATA, uses the triple-check to confirm the nature of any interesting effect that's detected. If the same effect is detected from three separate directions, that's a tip-off that the telescopes are picking up on earthly radio interference rather than E.T.'s phone call. 

"The next thing we're going to take on is real-time imaging of a wide field of view," Tarter said. "There are lots of challenges there, and lots of opportunities for SETI detections that haven't been there in the past."

Those are the sorts of challenges that Gerry Harp will be taking on as the new director of the Center for SETI Research. Meanwhile, Tarter will be focusing on the long-term future of the search for extraterrestrial intelligence.

"If we can get the research to the next level, there is something so fundamental that we can learn from the detection of a signal, even if it's just a cosmic dial tone," Tarter said. The message would be that technological civilizations can actually survive long enough to reach out to other corners of the cosmos.

"If they can do it, then dammit, we can do it," Tarter said.

More about the SETI quest:

• Gallery: 50 years of looking for E.T.
• Interactive: What are the odds of finding E.T.?
• Scientists need your eyes to look for E.T.
• Cosmic Log archive on SETI

The SETI Institute is celebrating Tarter's 35 years of SETI research at SETIcon II, set for June 22-24 at the Santa Clara Hyatt in California's Silicon Valley. SETIcon is a public convention that draws together more than 60 scientists, artists and entertainers to focus on the present and future search for life in the universe. Tarter will be honored at a gala event on June 23. Speakers will include fellow SETI astronomer Frank Drake; former astronaut Mae Jemison, a leader of the 100 Year Starship effort; and "Star Trek" actor Robert Picardo. Tickets are available via the SETIcon website.

Alan Boyle is msnbc.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter or adding Cosmic Log's Google+ page to your circle. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for other worlds.

Wally Santana / AP

An annular solar eclipse is seen briefly during a break in clouds over Taipei, Taiwan.

The sun, moon and Earth lined up today for a spectacular "Ring of Fire" annular eclipse that sparked social rites as ancient as Stonehenge and as modern as the Twitterverse.

Eclipse fans gathered in locales ranging from Japan's Mount Fuji, to the alien-hunting Allen Telescope Array in California, to the ancient Petroglyph National Monument in New Mexico. But they gathered online as well, to share the wonders of the event via webcasts and chatrooms and Twitter feeds.

"Is it bad that instead of just going outside I'm watching photo updates of the eclipse on Instagram?" one tweeter asked.

• PhotoBlog: Must-see eclipse views from around the world
• Your photos of the eclipse ... it's not too late to share!
• Explore an eclipse panorama from California's Lassen Peak

This event held special significance for American skywatchers: It marked the first time in 18 years that an annular solar eclipse could be seen from the United States. Such eclipses occur when the moon is too far away in its elliptical orbit to cover the sun's disk completely, as seen from Earth. As a result, a little ring of the sun remains visible around the moon's dark disk, even at the height of the eclipse. (The term "annular" comes from "annulus," a Latin word meaning "little ring.")

Centuries ago, priests may have celebrated eclipses at Stonehenge with religious rites. But today, the residents of Redding, Calif., celebrated with barbecue parties. "It's become a very social event," said Tim Young, a physics professor from the University of North Dakota who helped organize an eclipse webcast from Shasta College in Redding.

The event began in Asia, where the edge of the moon's shadow touched down at dawn on Monday (on the other side of the International Date Line). A camera crew atop Mount Fuji battled inclement weather that partially obscured the annular phase, but their live Internet stream still managed to catch a few glimpses through the clouds. More than 275,000 viewers tuned in to the webcast, the project's organizers said.

Eclipse tours were arranged in Japan, China and Taiwan to take skywatchers to the central part of the moon's shadow, where the annular "Ring of Fire" effect was visible. Tokyo residents had a ringside seat, so to speak. "It was a very mysterious sight," Kaori Sasaki, who joined a crowd in downtown Tokyo, told The Associated Press. "I've never seen anything like it." 

The moon's shadow raced eastward at a speed of more than 2,000 miles per hour. The annular phase could be seen only from locations along a roughly 200-mile-wide, 8,500-mile-long track, for just a few minutes in any one location. In contrast, the partial eclipse rose and receded over the course of a couple of hours, and was visible over a much wider swath of the world.

The first hints of the partial eclipse didn't show up on the U.S. West Coast until around 5 p.m. PT (6 p.m. MT, 7 p.m. CT, 8 p.m. ET). The annular phase reached its peak for Americans after 9 p.m. ET, along a line stretching from the Oregon-California coast to around Lubbock, Texas.

Astronomers and amateurs gathered to witness the annular eclipse at the Allen Telescope Array, 70 miles northeast of Redding. Guests walked among the facility's 20-foot-wide radio antennas, which monitor the skies for signals from extraterrestrial civilizations, listened to talks from SETI researchers, and then watched the eclipse through safety glasses or specially designed solar telescopes.

One of the guests, William Phelps, peered intently through his 80mm H-alpha telescope, looking for the first signs of the moon poking into the sun's disk. He's a veteran of 16 previous eclipse-viewing sessions, but he still let out a yelp when he spotted the moon's edge through the telescope.

"Yahoo! That's No. 17!" he cried. Then he let the other guests take their own peeks.

As the moon covered more and more of the sun, the California afternoon seemed to get a bit cooler and dimmer, as if a tinted window had materialized in front of the mountain landscape. The sunbeams filtering through the trees threw crescent-shaped patterns on the ground. At the appointed time, the dark moon was completely ringed by sunlight, and the crescents on the ground turned into tiny O's. A cheer went up from the little crowd.

"God, that's beautiful!" Phelps said. After a few minutes, the moon began its slow exit from the sun's disk. "I'm seeing beads," Phelps reported, referring to the "Baily's Beads" effect that occurs when bits of sunlight leak out through the valleys of the moon. 

Slideshow: Greatest solar eclipse hits

Roger Ressmeyer / Corbis

See stunning images from past solar eclipses going back to the 1920s.

Launch slideshow

Elsewhere, more than 5,000 people gathered at the University of Colorado's Folsom Field in Boulder for a mass eclipse-watching party. "We got several really long, good views, especially right close to sunset," university spokeswoman Erin Frazier told me. A full house attended an eclipse teach-in at Petroglyph National Monument in New Mexico, a sacred site for the Pueblo people and one of the prime viewing spots for the "Ring of Fire."

Would-be watchers heeded the warnings about eye safety, and snapped up thousands upon thousands of eclipse-viewing glasses in the days leading up to the event. The University of Nevada at Reno reported that it sold 17,000 of the glasses at $2 each last week, and had to order 10,000 more. Young said he brought 600 of the special spectacles with him to Redding. His supply quickly dwindled. "It's become a mad grab for resources," he said.

Young, who has been involved in more than a dozen webcasts since 2004, said interest in today's eclipse picked up surprisingly quickly. "Three days ago, it was not that big a deal, but as the news started playing it up, people got excited," he said.

Decades ago, before the rise of sun-watching satellites, eclipses provided the best opportunities for astronomers to learn about the sun's structure — and they're still of scientific interest. This weekend, for example, Williams College astronomer Jay Pasachoff organized an expedition to the Jansky Very Large Array in New Mexico to monitor the sun's radio emissions during the eclipse. But experts say the phenomenon's main appeal nowadays has more to do with the human psyche than with scientific studies.

"This can get people to look up from their little anthill lives, and maybe get a sense of the bigger cosmic cycles that are going on all the time over our heads," said Alan MacRobert, a senior editor at Sky & Telescope magazine.

The eclipse experience can have a long-lasting effect, said Seth Shostak, an astronomer at the California-based SETI Institute who conducted a tutorial at the Allen Telescope Array. "Eclipses are like potato chips, notable for the fact that in all recorded history nobody has eaten only one," he joked. "Be warned."

More about the eclipse:

• Eclipse Day! Your guide to the 'Ring of Fire'
• Get ready to chase the eclipse
• Where and how to see the eclipse
• How to see the eclipse online
• How to safely observe the solar eclipse
• How to photograph the eclipse safely
• World's largest solar eclipse party? Game on!
• Why the 'Ring of Fire' will be a rare sight
• See the solar eclipse at a national park
• Satellite to watch solar eclipse from space
• Five myths about the sun
• Slideshow: Greatest eclipse hits
• Share your eclipse photos with PhotoBlog 

Ready for another "potato chip"? The next sky spectacular is a partial lunar eclipse, visible from Pacific locales on June 4. That'll be followed by a rare transit of Venus on June 5. The year's other big target will be a total solar eclipse, visible from Australia and the Pacific on Nov. 13. Stay tuned for coverage of all those astronomical events.

Alan Boyle is msnbc.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter or adding Cosmic Log's Google+ page to your circle. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for other worlds.

Last updated 11:59 p.m. ET May 20.

It's time to put on your eclipse glasses, prepare your pinhole projectors or scout out a sun-watching website: The first annular solar eclipse to pass through the United States in 18 years is on its way.

The moon will start eating away at the sun's disk around 5 p.m. ET today — although that's early Monday morning in Asia, where the eclipse begins. A wide swath of the world between south China and the American Midwest will see a partial solar eclipse, due to the moon's position between Earth and sun. And along a roughly 200-mile-wide track, skywatchers can witness a "Ring of Fire," in which just a thin ring of the sun's disk remains uncovered. There'll be no total eclipse this time around, because the moon is too far away in orbit to match the sun's apparent size. Nevertheless, it's a sight not to be missed.

Here are seven things you need to know about witnessing the eclipse:

Seeing the big picture: Solar eclipses occur when the moon, sun and Earth line up closely enough for the moon to throw its shadow on earthly locations. Annular eclipses, which create that fiery ring around the moon, are actually rarer than total eclipses because the moon has to be relatively far away in its orbit. Check out this interactive for the graphic details.

Seeing it in Asia: The moon's shadow races eastward across Earth's surface at more than 2,000 mph, starting in China's southern Guangxi Province. Theoretically, the "Ring of Fire" could be visible after 6 p.m. ET over Asian urban centers such as Guangzhou, Hong Kong, Macau, Taipei, Osaka and Tokyo. But for many of those cities, the weather outlook isn't that great: Cloudy skies or even thundershowers are in the forecast.

Seeing it in America: The partial eclipse begins over the U.S. West Coast and Canada around 8 p.m. ET, and even earlier in Alaska. Skywatchers in portions of Oregon, California, Nevada, Utah, Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas can witness the "Ring of Fire" effect at its peak after 9 p.m. ET. As you go farther east, sunset becomes the limiting factor. The U.S. East Coast, for example, will miss out on all phases of the eclipse. Consult NASA's clickable map to find out what will be visible from your locale. The times are listed as UTC, so subtract five hours for Central Daylight Time, six hours for Mountain Time, and seven hours for Pacific Time. Don't forget to check the weather, too.

Seeing it safely: Experts emphasize that you should never gaze at the sun without appropriate eye protection, even when the solar disk is almost completely blocked by the moon during an annular eclipse. You can look at the sun through specially designed eclipse-viewing glasses, or through welder's glass. Those are in short supply now, but you might still be able to find the right equipment at national parks, science centers and other eclipse hot spots. You can also create a pinhole projector with supplies as simple as a sheet of paper, aluminum foil and a box. Or you can just look at the weird crescent-shaped and ring-shaped patterns created when sunlight streams through the trees. Check out this safety guide for more tips.

Seeing it online: If you're outside the eclipse zone, or if cloudy skies spoil your view, you can still choose from more than a dozen webcasts that are promising to follow the phenomenon. If one webcast isn't working, try another. Here's a list of the webcasts we've come across.

Sharing what you see: If you're a Twitter user, you'll want to use a hashtag like #eclipse, #eclipse2012 or #annulareclipse to let the world know about your sky sighting. And if you snap a great picture of the eclipse, won't you please share it with us, via Twitter or Instagram or Facebook? Flag your submission with the #EclipseMSNBC hashtag. We have an extra special option for DSLR users: Just upload your images using the drag-and-drop feature on this PhotoBlog page. 

Seeing the next sky spectacular: The annular eclipse is a treat, but it's not the end of this year's big sky shows. If you have the right equipment — for example, a telescope or a pair of binoculars equipped with solar filters — you can watch the June 5 transit of Venus. (This will be the last such transit until 2117.) There's a total solar eclipse coming up on Nov. 13 that can be seen from Australia and the Pacific, as well as via the Internet. And in five years, totality will make a huge splash across the United States, for the first time since 1979. Sunday's event will provide good practice for all these coming attractions.  

More about the annular solar eclipse:

• Podcast: All about the eclipse and Venus transit
• Get ready to chase the eclipse
• Where and how to see the eclipse
• How to see the eclipse online
• How to photograph the eclipse safely
• World's largest solar eclipse party? Game on!
• Why the 'Ring of Fire' will be a rare sight
• See the solar eclipse at a national park
• Satellite to watch solar eclipse from space
• Five myths about the sun
• Slideshow: Greatest eclipse hits
• Share your eclipse photos with PhotoBlog 

Alan Boyle is msnbc.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter or adding Cosmic Log's Google+ page to your circle. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for other worlds.

Jeroen Frans

Second Life residents watch a virtual presentation about eclipses on Exploratorium Island, in an image by Jeroen Frans (a.k.a. Frans Charming) of VesuviusGroup.com. The Exploratorium is planning a Second Life teach-in during Sunday's annular solar eclipse.

If the weather cooperates, millions of people can witness Sunday's rare "Ring of Fire" solar eclipse — but what if you're one of the billions who can't? You can still watch the event online.

That's what Alan MacRobert, a senior editor at Sky & Telescope magazine, is planning to do. He's based in the Boston area, where not a bit of the annular solar eclipse will be visible. So MacRobert will be cruising the Internet, looking for a webcast with a stable video stream.

He should have plenty of webcasts to choose from. "There are more popping up as we get closer to the event," he told me.

Sunday's spectacle isn't your garden-variety solar eclipse: Because the moon is farther away from Earth than usual, the angular size of the lunar disk isn't quite wide enough to cover up the sun completely. Thus, at the peak of the eclipse, a thin ring of the sun's bright photosphere will remain exposed around the moon's dark circle.

That's what's known as an annular eclipse, which gets its name from the Latin word for "little ring": annulus. The little ring can be seen from a 200-mile-wide strip of territory, extending from southern China, through Japan, across the North Pacific and over to the U.S. West Coast. From the Oregon-California border, the strip goes across parts of Nevada, Utah, Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas.

The "Ring of Fire" effect lasts just a few minutes. For about an hour before and after the big event, a partial solar eclipse will darken the sun and then retreat. The partial phase can also be seen to varying degrees from a much wider swath of eastern Asia, the Pacific and North America.

If you're in the eclipse zone, do not gaze at the sun without taking proper precautions. Such precautions can range from eclipse-viewing glasses, to specially designed solar filters, to pinhole projectors. Check out this NASA Web page or this video for the details. Here's a detailed video about eye safety from Eyes on the Sky. (Thanks, @AstronomyDave!)

If you're not in the eclipse zone, you're not alone: The U.S. East Coast, South America, Europe, Africa, Australia and Antarctica will be totally left out. And let's face it: Even if you are in the zone, the weather may not cooperate. That's especially the case for places like Hong Kong and Guangzhou, where millions might miss the annular eclipse due to cloudy skies. "This is monsoon season in south China, so they're going to need quite a bit of luck to have a chance of seeing this one," MacRobert said.

Watching the eclipse via a webcast isn't a sure thing, either. The skies might be clouded over at the camera location. There could be technical difficulties. And even if everything works, the webcast could freeze up if the video server becomes overwhelmed with traffic. That's why MacRobert is planning to play the field, and why you'd be best advised to do the same. Here are a few of the options for Sunday eclipse views over a computer screen or smartphone:

Slooh Space Camera: The Slooh website has organized a series of webcasts from Japan, California, Arizona and New Mexico, accompanied by commentary from Astronomy Magazine columnist Bob Berman and Lucie Green, a BBC commentator and solar researcher at University College London's Mullard Space Science Laboratory. The show gets started at 5:30 p.m. ET Sunday, when the eclipse will be just getting good in Japan. Prime time for the webcasts from the American West will kick in around 8 p.m. ET. For more, check out Slooh's news release.

Eclipse Live from Fujiyama: Panasonic is planning a solar-powered webcast from high atop Japan's Mount Fuji, which is inside the track of annularity. The team will charge up batteries from an array of electricity-generating solar cells at a base camp, then carry the batteries up to the camera site. Video coverage via Ustream is due to start up at 5 p.m. ET. This YouTube video previews the event. For updates, check out the project's Facebook page and Twitter stream.

Hong Kong Observatory: The webcast from Hong Kong is due to begin at 5:41 p.m. ET.

Live-Eclipse: Japanese eclipse-chasers plan to be webcasting via Ustream at 6 p.m. ET. 

More from YokosoNews: This page from the Japanese news site lists lots of webcasts, generally beginning at 5 p.m. ET or later.

More from Ustream: Do a search on "eclipse" and you'll find all sorts of Ustream goodies, from 5 p.m. ET onward. One user is promising a video stream from the northern tip of Taiwan starting at 4:50 p.m. ET.

AstroBob's viewing guide: Duluth photographer Bob King provides a vivid guide to the phases of an annular eclipse and also links to AstronomyLive.com as a potential source of webcasts.

University of North Dakota: UND's SEMS (Sun Earth Moon Systems) team is organizing an eclipse webcast from Shasta College in Redding, Calif. The streaming is due to begin at 8 p.m. ET, and there's a chat window that lets you compare notes with other eclipse fans. The UND team has been doing eclipse webcasts since 2004, so they've built up a loyal following over the years. 

Scotty's Sky: Skywatcher Scotty Degenhardt is promising an unconventional webcast of the annular eclipse via his iPhone from Area 51's "Black Mailbox," a popular gathering place for UFO fans in the Nevada desert. The show is set to start at 8:10 p.m. ET. Check out Degenhardt's website for the details.

Exploratorium in Second Life: Speaking of "unconventional" ... San Francisco's Exploratorium science center is planning to provide information about the eclipse in the Second Life virtual world. If you're a Second Life resident, set a course for Exploratorium Island.

If you're wowed by webcasts, stay tuned: There'll be another big event on June 5, when the planet Venus makes a must-see transit across the sun's disk; and again on Nov. 13, when a total solar eclipse takes place.

Are there any annular eclipse webcasts I'm missing? Pass 'em along in the comment section below.

Update for 12:10 p.m. ET May 18: To find out whether any part of the eclipse will be visible from your locale, consult this clickable map from NASA. The times are listed in UTC. Subtract four hours to convert to ET, five hours for CT, six hours for MT, seven hours for PT.

Correction for 4:50 a.m. ET May 20: I mistakenly placed Shasta College in Whittier, Calif., rather than Redding. That reference has been fixed ... sorry about that.

More about the eclipse:

• Get set to chase an annular eclipse
• Where and how to see the eclipse
• See the solar eclipse at a national park
• How to photograph the eclipse safely
• Interactive: What causes a solar eclipse?

Alan Boyle is msnbc.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. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.

ESO

The galaxy Centaurus A (NGC 5128) is pictured in this image, taken with by the Wide Field Imager attached to the MPG/ESO 2.2-meter telescope at the European Southern Observatory's La Silla Observatory in Chile. With a total exposure time of more than 50 hours, this could be deepest view of Centaurus A ever created.

Astronomers are taking a long, deep look at one of the best-known galaxies beyond our own Milky Way, to learn more about what happened when it gobbled up another agglomeration of stars that got too close.

The entrails of the gobbled galaxy are prominent in this view of Centaurus A, a galaxy about 12 million light-years away in the constellation Centaurus. The bright haze of stars is the typical signature of an elliptical galaxy, but the dark, swirling band of dust around the center is a tip-off that the "A" in Centaurus A stands for "atypical."

Scientists believe the band represents the dusty leftovers of the galaxy that has been consumed in a gravitationally driven merger. Flashes of fresh hot stars can be seen along the edges of the band. It's thought that an energetic black hole, 100 million times as massive as our sun, is blasting out strong radio emissions from the center of the haze.

Much of this has been seen before, in previous images of Centaurus A. But today's image, captured by the Wide Field Imager on the European Southern Observatory's MPG/ESO 2.2-meter telescope in Chile, reveals extra details. That's because the camera exposure lasted for more than 50 hours, making this one of the deepest views of Centaurus A ever produced.

One reddish filament of material is visible above the left edge of the dark band. A fainter filament can be made out near the upper left corner of the picture. These filaments, hotbeds for infant stars, appear to line up with radio-emitting jets that are being spewed out from the central black hole. Such features can help astronomers reconstruct how Centaurus A gobbled a galaxy in the first place, and how the remains are being digested. Further studies, involving ESO's ALMA Observatory, will shed additional light on the scene.

More about the gobbling galaxy:

• Hubble spies a firestorm of starbirth
• Giant galaxy caught in mid-gobble
• Snapshot reveals a black hole's jets
• Cosmic collision probably spawned huge galaxy
• Scientists find 'normal' black hole in Centaurus A

Alan Boyle is msnbc.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. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.

Don Pettit / NASA

This is a composite of 18 time-exposure images photographed from a mounted camera on the International Space Station, from approximately 240 miles above Earth. The image is filled with star trails and spiraling reflections from the space station's solar arrays.

Flying on the International Space Station is the world's biggest high, and a series of psychedelic time-exposure images engineered by NASA astronaut Don Pettit proves it.

This picture, showing the station's truss structure in the foreground and Earth's airglow in the background, is actually a composite of 18 different exposures. A couple of other pictures in the series step things up a notch by putting together 47 exposures. Here's Pettit's explanation of the process, as laid out in the NASA Twitter gallery:

"My star trail images are made by taking a time exposure of about 10 to 15 minutes. However, with modern digital cameras, 30 seconds is about the longest exposure possible, due to electronic detector noise effectively snowing out the image. To achieve the longer exposures, I do what many amateur astronomers do. I take multiple 30-second exposures, then 'stack' them using imaging software, thus producing the longer exposure."

This isn't the only experiment Pettit has been conducting during his stint on the space station. A wide variety of scientific tests are under way in orbit, ranging from studies of human health in zero-G to the chemistry of Scotch whisky in weightlessness. Pettit has shown off some pretty trippy experiments in a couple of space station videos, including the creation of antibubbles within bubbles and the sight of sonic water droplets rockin' out to the sounds of ZZ Top. As Pettit says in one of the videos: "Oh, wow!" Check out the full "Science Off the Sphere" series, presented in cooperation with the American Physical Society.

More about the space station:

• Video: Russian rocket blasts off for space station
• New life science experiments sought for space station
• Space zucchini's life blogged by astronaut

Tip o' the Log to Phil Plait at the Bad Astronomy blog.

Alan Boyle is msnbc.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. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.

Nexdim Empire

Atlanta-based family researcher William Holland sits alongside one of the Oku elders, Samuel Nshiom "Pa" Wambeng, during a visit to Cameroon in March. Wambeng passed away weeks after this picture was taken.

If you're an African-American, tracing your roots back to the ancestral continent is hard enough — but tracing them back to the ancestral family? That requires genetic testing, plus family-history scholarship, plus trips to Africa, plus a little bit of faith. William Holland has filled all of those requirements, and to celebrate, he's planning a cross-continental family reunion for Memorial Day weekend in Virginia, where his ancestors were once held as slaves.

"Memorial Day is a time for remembering the loved ones you lost, right?" Holland said. "So it's a good time to remember all those generations that were lost."

It's taken more than a decade for the 43-year-old Atlanta genealogist to fill in the story of those lost generations — a story that leads back to Cameroon, and then even further back to present-day Syria. The historical record is so fragmentary, and the genetic analysis is so imprecise, that Holland couldn't possibly achieve iron-clad scientific certainty about the precise family relationships. But the story that Holland has pieced together is consistent with the genetic tests as well as with the tales told by families in Africa and America. And just as importantly, the story finally feels right.

"What makes this more conclusive is that they had an authentic story that many people could verify," Holland said.

Holland's initial investigative work took him back to the Civil War era in Virginia, where he found that his great-grandfather, Creed Holland, was a slave who was put to work as a wagon driver for the Confederate Army. That led Holland and his brothers to sign up for membership in the Sons of Confederate Veterans — which was a controversial move at the time.

But Holland didn't stop there: He wanted to know how it was that Creed's ancestors became slaves in the first place. So he took advantage of a trend that was just getting started back then: genetic testing for the purpose of finding family connections. After a couple of false starts, Holland found enough matches to justify focusing in on a region of Cameroon in West Africa.

When I first started writing about Holland's quest, two years ago, he was following up on connections to royalty in northwest Cameroon's Mankon tribe. Holland visited the tribal leader, or Fon, in the regional capital of Bamenda — and received an African name (Ndefru) from the Fon of Mankon himself during a ceremony. Holland reciprocated the next year by inviting the royal family to a gathering in Franklin County, Va. The idea was to bring together the descendants of slaves and their African relations, and even the descendants of slaveowners. But something about the event felt wrong.

"The rest of the Mankon family really resisted the fact that they were coming over," Holland recalled. "That told me that 'this is not your family, because they should be happy, they should be welcoming you.'"

During follow-up trips to Africa, Holland learned more about the reason for the Mankon tribe's reluctance: Their ancestors were among several ethnic groups in that region of Cameroon who played a murky role in the slave trade of the 18th century. "Mankon didn't trade in their own people, but they were the middlemen for people [from other tribes] going down the coast," Holland said. "The Europeans would come to the coast and provide them with whiskey and guns to make people fight."

Some of this information came from the leaders of a different group, the Oku, who live in a region of Cameroon about 20 miles northeast of Bamenda. After visiting the region, hearing the tales of the elders and double-checking the genetic results, Holland feels confident that he now has the right story.

"You felt the sense of coming back," Holland told me. "You felt the welcoming that you should have gotten. They were running down the hill to come and meet us. That's how it was."

One of the Oku elders, Sam "Pa" Wambeng, told Holland that the Oku and other groups trace their heritage back to 7th-century Syria. When Islam took hold in the region, those groups made their way through the Middle East and Africa, eventually settling in Cameroon. In addition to the Oku, the settlers included the Mboum, Nso and Foumban peoples. 

Wambeng and other elders said there was a widely respected member of the Oku tribe named Bailack who lived in the 1700s. Bailack had several wives and scores of sons, but many of them were abducted and passed on to the European slavers during the reign of a ruthless fon named Ney.

"They say 70 individuals were taken directly from the family," Holland told me. "They would have been the children of Bailack. Two or three escaped, and that's how they continued with the family. The family has spread to more than eight villages in Oku, despite the number captured as slaves in the reign of Ney."

The time frame for that abduction, in the 1770s, matched up with the time frame for the voyage of Holland's great-great-great-great-grandfather to Virginia, where he was sold as a slave. And the rest is American history.

Courtesy of William Holland

Residents of an Oku village turn out to welcome William Holland during his visit to Cameroon.

Courtesy of William Holland

William Holland (at right) and his brother Marvin flank the Fon of Oku during a visit in March.

Courtesy of William Holland

The house of an Oku patriarch named Bailack was built in the 1700s and is still standing in a Cameroonian village.

Do the genetics support Holland's status as Bailack's great-great-great-great-great-grandson? The evidence isn't indisputable. Thirty-one of the 36 genetic markers on the test that Holland took match up with the results from the Cameroonian clan. Genetic genealogy is a matter of probabilities, and the more markers two people have in common, the more likely it is that they're closely related. Thirty-one out of 36 is not super-close, but close enough for Holland to feel as if he's on the right track.

"The results from different family lines show that there were strong mutations that occurred in the 1600s and the 1700s. Given the amount of time from 1772 to this generation, it fits in a time frame where you can have those mutations occur," Holland told me. "I'm no geneticist by any means, but it sounds logical that could happen."

It's logical enough that Holland has scheduled another gathering, this time with members of the extended Oku clan as the special guests. It's due to take place around 1 p.m. ET on May 27, at the Franklin County Recreational Park near Rocky Mount, Va. Holland hopes that some of his long-lost relatives will be in attendance — but one of the dearest friends he made in Cameroon won't be there. Pa Wambeng, the elder who told the story that Holland has now made his own, passed away just a few weeks ago.

"I'm very honored to have gotten there and met him," Holland said, "because if we put off our trip, it would have been too late."

Previous chapters in the African saga:

• Sept. 8, 2010: DNA points to royal roots in Africa
• Feb. 1, 2011: Family roots get tangled up in Africa
• Feb. 28, 2011: Black history saga comes full circle
• July 3, 2011: Africans visit their American cousins
• Nov. 4, 2011: Genes tell a tale as big as Africa 
• African American news from theGrio 

Holland says the Memorial Day weekend reunion will serve as a memorial for "all the ancestors who traveled this path that affected our family line," including Pa Wambeng as well as Grace Ngum Tamufor, the recently deceased daughter of the previous Fon of Oku.

Alan Boyle is msnbc.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. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.

NASA / SDO

Sunspot region 1476 points toward Earth like a loaded gun in this picture from NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory. Experts say the active region is capable of generating major X-class flares.

We're not only closing out the week — we're closing out the first 10 years of Cosmic Log. It was on May 13, 2002, that I first began noting the follies and mysteries of science, space and society in this space. To mark the occasion, I'm presenting not just one, not just two, but three sets of brain-teasers.

The first puzzle has already played out on the Cosmic Log Facebook page. I asked Facebook followers to figure out which four-digit number is best associated with the picture above, and it just took a couple of minutes for multiple commenters to come up with the answer: 1476, the designation for the active region that's currently front and center on the sun's disk and capable of throwing X-class flares in our direction.

Mitch Siff was the first to put it all together, and I'm sending him my last pair of sun-viewing safety glasses, suitable for watching the May 20 annular solar eclipse from his home in Colorado. Michael J. Tiano was also quick on the draw, and he'll be getting my second-last pair of 3-D glasses, along with a scary 3-D picture of yours truly.

It's worth noting that a solar storm was one of the first topics tackled in Cosmic Log 10 years ago.

Space Needle unscrambler
Earlier in the week, I reported on the finals of a "Space Race 2012" competition at Seattle's Space Needle that resulted in Arizona law-school student Gregory Schneider winning a future suborbital trip into outer space. The final test was to solve a series of 10 brain-teasers while walking around a narrow ring-shaped platform just outside the Needle's 520-foot-high observation deck. I mentioned a couple of sample questions on Wednesday, but in honor of Cosmic Log's 10th birthday, here's the full set of 10 questions. The first commenter to give the correct answers to all 10 teasers — in a single comment, not a series of comments — will be eligible to receive my last pair of giveaway 3-D glasses.

Unscramble the five following words:

1. PALOLO

2. IODEATSR

3. VGATIYR

4. OEREMTETI

5. EFCRCAPTSA

6. How many stars are in the Big Dipper?

7. For the Space Needle's 50th Anniversary, the roof was painted which color: Orbital Orange, Galaxy Gold, Meteor Melon, Re-entry Red.

8. True or false: The planet Venus rotates clockwise. It is the only planet to do so.

9. Which is NOT the name of a NASA shuttle: Atlantis, Voyager, Discovery, Endeavour.

10. Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong became the first men to walk on the moon in which year: 1968, 1967, 1969, 1966.

Cosmic Log history lesson
Finally, here are some trivia questions about the past 10 years of Cosmic Log. First person to get all the answers correct in a single comment will be eligible to receive a signed copy of my book "The Case for Pluto." (I'm not holding my breath.) 

1. Where did the name "Cosmic Log" come from? A space mission? A TV show? A comic book? Or did I just make it up?

2. Which "Star Trek" actor was interviewed for Cosmic Log? Nichelle Nichols? Leonard Nimoy? William Shatner? George Takei?

3. Which would-be celebrity astronaut was interviewed for Cosmic Log? Lance Bass? Mark Burnett? James Cameron? Victoria Principal?

4. Which Apollo astronaut was NOT interviewed for Cosmic Log? Buzz Aldrin? Alan Bean? Pete Conrad? Harrison Schmitt?

5. Which magician has been interviewed for Cosmic Log? The Amazing Randi? The Amazing Kreskin? David Copperfield? Penn Jillette?

6. Which medium/channel/psychic has been interviewed for Cosmic Log? Mary T. Browne? Theresa Caputo? Allison Dubois? JZ Knight?

7. Which TV show has been the subject of Cosmic Log postings? "American Idol"? "Dancing With the Stars"? "The X-Files"? All of the above?

8. What is the "CLUB Club"? A hangout for Cosmic Log fans in Seattle back in the early days? A concept I proposed for an anti-theft device? A list of book recommendations? A members-only gallery of cosmic pictures?

9. What kind of celestial object got its name in part because of Cosmic Log? Asteroid? Comet? Crater? Mountain?

10. Who was the object named after? Douglas Adams? Alan Boyle? Stephen Hawking? Robert Heinlein?

I'll provide the answers to both of the 10-question teasers on Sunday, the 10th anniversary, and if I'm in a generous mood for the start of the next 10 years, I may give away a book even if no one gets all of the Cosmic Log trivia questions right.

Answers to questions:
Space Needle unscrambler: APOLLO, ASTEROID, GRAVITY, METEORITE, SPACECRAFT, seven stars, Galaxy Gold, true, Voyager, 1969. BigBenAlaska solved all the puzzles and richly deserves a pair of 3-D glasses.

Cosmic Log history: To get the answers to some of these questions, you have to go back to the deep archive at Multiply.com. Julia Cline got all the answers right and is eligible to receive a signed copy of "The Case for Pluto."

1. Cosmic Log's name was inspired by a 40-year-old quote from a character in Weird Mystery Tales #1: "My name is Destiny, and it is my Fate to walk alone throughout eternity and observe the follies and mysteries of mankind, and to note them all in the cosmic log." Among the rejected names: Quanta, Penultimate Questions and the Blog at the End of the Universe.

2. William Shatner was our guest for a Cosmic Log chat on Oct. 14, 2002. 

3. Although Lance Bass was the subject of frequent Cosmic Log items in 2002, I never did talk with Lance himself. I did, however, chat with James Cameron a couple of times about his space aspirations. 

4. I've had items in Cosmic Log about Apollo 11's Buzz Aldrin, Apollo 12's Alan Bean, Apollo 17's Harrison Schmitt and other astronauts from NASA's glory days. I interviewed Apollo 12 commander Pete Conrad before his death in 1999 for a story about his Universal Space Lines venture — but that was before Cosmic Log got started. So Pete Conrad is the answer to this one.

5. The Amazing Kreskin was the focus of a 2002 Cosmic Log item about his UFO stunt in Nevada.

6. JZ Knight (who says she channels a 35,000-year-old warrior spirit named Ramtha) was the subject of an extended interview in 2010. I haven't yet checked in with Theresa ("Long Island Medium") Caputo or Allison Dubois of the "Medium" TV series, but I do stay in touch with my cousin Mary T. Browne, "the Wall Street psychic."

7. All of the above: Who hasn't written about "American Idol," "Dancing With the Stars" and "The X-Files"?

8. The CLUB Club is the "Cosmic Log Used Book Club." Since 2002, we've been highlighting books with cosmic themes that have been out long enough to become available at your local library or secondhand-book store. Even though I haven't been providing book club selections as often as I used to, the CLUB Club archive still makes for a pretty good reading list. 

9 and 10. Back in 2003, I discussed the procedure for naming asteroids and solicited suggestions for folks who should have an asteroid named after them. Douglas Adams, the humorist behind the "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" series, was one of the prospects mentioned — and I noticed that there was an asteroid out there that almost literally had his name on it. The space rock known provisionally as 2001 DA42 included the date of Adams' death (2001), his initials (DA) and the answer to the ultimate question from the Hitchhiker's Guide (42). Astronomer Brian Marsden, who headed the International Astronomical Union's Minor Planet Center at the time, thought it was a great suggestion and helped make it so in 2005. You can get the full story here.

Alan Boyle is msnbc.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. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.

Marine biologists say the spooky "Cascade Creature" seen drifting through the deep sea in a viral video isn't a whale placenta, a parachute, a plastic bag or an alien visitor: It's a type of jellyfish known as a Deepstaria enigmatica.

The video, which was apparently captured by a remotely operated vehicle near an underwater drilling site, caused a bit of a stir over the past couple of weeks among weird-science fans. Now it looks as if the truth is out there, thanks to assessments from experts such as Steven Haddock at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute and Craig McClain at the National Evolutionary Synthesis Center.

"This bag-like jelly is not that rare, but is large, so rarely seen intact," Haddock and his colleagues write on the JellyWatch Facebook page. "In the video, the swirling from the sub makes the medusa appear to undulate, and it even turns inside-out." They provide a helpful picture of a more typical specimen.

McClain is even more helpful in his posting at Deep Sea News. He provides citations on previous sightings of the beast, including explanations for the jellyfish's weirdly collapsed shape. And he shows through photographs and drawings that the strange appendage and whitish lumps seen in the video are D. enigmatica's gonads. TMI, Craig ... TMI.

For a third opinion, look no further than Australia's Nine News, which quotes Daniel Bucher, a marine biologist at Southern Cross University, as saying that the gonads were the giveaway.

Now that we've settled that, bring on the next sea monster.

More sea monsters:

• Iceland's monster unmasked
• Monster bug? It's no joke!
• Nessie-like monster filmed in Alaska
• Why giant squid have basketball eyes
• Fishermen pick up dying giant squid

Alan Boyle is msnbc.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. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.