Library of Congress
	Galileo Galilei shows off his telescope as well as his astronomical discoveries to three women in a 1655 engraving.

The International Year of Astronomy is ending, but the legacy of the last 12 months of celestial celebration will continue, under night skies and especially on the Internet.

Astronomers around the world contributed to the IYA under the auspices of the International Astronomical Union and other organizations in 148 countries, to commemorate the 400th anniversary of Galileo Galilei's groundbreaking telescope observations in 1609. The activities included "100 Hours of Astronomy" in April, Galilean Nights in October ... and the distribution of more than 110,000 low-cost, high-performance telescopes in 96 countries.

Another 70,000 "Galileoscopes" are currently in production, and more than 15,000 of them will be given out to schoolteachers across the United States thanks to a $250,000 private donation announced just this week.

All this would be enough to justify devoting a year to the celebration of astronomy, and then quietly taking a break and moving on to the next "international year." But wait ... there's more: Several Web sites have been established to keep the astronomy buzz going into 2010 and beyond.

The Astronomy Beyond 2009 Web site, for example, will carry on the celebration of Galilean glories, starting with live streaming video of this weekend's IYA closing ceremonies in Padua, Italy. And although they're called "closing" ceremonies, the International Astronomical Union hopes to kee the spirit of 2009 alive for years to come.

"IYA 2009 may be over, but it leaves an important legacy for us to continue," IAU President Robert Williams said in a news release. "The groundwork has been laid for astronomers and enthusiasts around the world to use the momentum gained from IYA 2009 to ensure that the universe is still ours to discover far into the future."

One of the groups taking advantage of that momentum is the Astrosphere New Media Association.

"This project rose out of two needs," astronomer Pamela Gay, the association's executive director, said in a news release. "There are many of us working together in our spare time to communicate astronomy to the world. We're building tools, writing content and then giving it all away. What we needed was a central advocate who could work to find us a little funding for travel and servers and just help us get what we do out to the world. Astrosphere is here to be that advocate, and to provide IYA projects a home beyond 2009."

One of those projects is "365 Days of Astronomy," a daily podcast that has now been extended for another 365 days. Another is Second Astronomy, which will extend real-world astronomy into the virtual world known as Second Life. Yet another project is Astronomy Cast, a mostly-weekly series of educational audio programs.

One of the fun features that came to light during the windup of the IYA was rolled out by Wolfram | Alpha, an innovative search engine created by Mathematica's Stephen Wolfram.

If you type "Jupiter" into the search box, you get the basic stats on the giant planet and moons that Galileo observed 400 years earlier - including a graphic showing the current configuration of the Galilean moons. You can do something similar with Saturn, or Pluto, or Eris and Haumea. You can even get a fix on Sedna, which is arguably the solar system's oddest oddball.

The wide variety of worlds, in our solar system and beyond, was a major theme for the American Astronomical Society's winter meeting, which is also winding up. Scientists thrilled to hear about a new super-Earth, the planet-hunting Kepler satellite's first discoveries and the first image from the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, or WISE, which could conceivably find a Planet X on the solar system's far fringe. But this week's revelations were just the beginning. You can look forward to hearing much more from WISE as well as Kepler in the months ahead.

And lest we forget, Yuri's Night (April 12) and Astronomy Day (April 24) aren't all that far away. When you add it all up, there's enough going on to make every year an astronomy year.

• Gary Hayes' Social Media Counts
• 'Nova' on PBS: 'Building Pharaoh's Ship'
• h+ interviews Ray Kurzweil (via GeekPress)
• The New Yorker: Update from the lost city of Z
• Economist: Make mine red. No, blue. No, white
• ScienceNOW: Did Egyptian eyeliner ward off disease? 

Bayle et al. / PNAS

Scientists created these virtual 3-D reconstructions of 30,000-year-old teeth.

Did our extinct Neanderthal cousins have an artistic bent, and did they interbreed with modern humans? Newly published research seems to support affirmative answers to both questions, but those answers are far from final.

The fresh findings appear this week in two reports written by overlapping teams of researchers and published by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

One study focuses on bones and marine shells found at 50,000-year-old Neanderthal cave settlements in southeast Spain. The other study looks at the teeth of a 30,000-year-old human skeleton from Portugal.

Did they do it?
One of the big questions about the Neanderthals is whether they had sex with our human ancestors. Evolutionary theory dictates that both species - Homo sapiens and Homo neanderthalensis - diverged from a common ancestor perhaps 700,000 years ago. However, paleoanthropologists are still debating whether the two species interbred when they came in contact in Europe about 40,000 years ago. Some go so far as to suggest that Neanderthals disappeared not because they were killed off by early humans, but because they were genetically absorbed into our own species.

The analysis of teeth from the skeleton of a 4- to 5-year-old human child, unearthed more than a decade ago at Portugal's Abrigo do Lagar Velho site, suggests that the humans of 30,000 years ago had more in common with Neanderthals than was previously thought.

	Univ. of Bristol
	The 30,000-year-old child skeleton found in Portugal was nearly complete.

Researchers led by Priscilla Bayle of France's Museum of Natural History used X-ray micro-tomography to create 3-D images of the child's teeth. They found that the front teeth were delayed in their degree of formation, compared with the state of the teeth farther back on the jaw. The front teeth also had more dentin and pulp than the teeth of more recent humans, but less enamel.

These characteristics don't fit the pattern seen in today's human population, or even the pattern for 12,000-year-old human teeth. They come closer to fitting the pattern for Neanderthals, the researchers said.

The University of Bristol's João Zilhão, who found the skeleton and is a co-author of the study, said in a news release that the tooth analysis joins a growing body of evidence "that shows these 'early modern humans' were 'modern' without being 'fully modern.'"

The university said the report "raises controversial questions about how extensively Neanderthals and modern human groups of African descent interbred when they came into contact in Europe."

However, the study itself stops short of directly addressomg those questions. Instead, the researchers say their findings "reinforce the complex nature of Neanderthal-modern human similarities and differences, and document ongoing human evolution" even after the rise of modern humans. They suggest further studies of juvenile teeth, going back 100,000 to 200,000 years, could make a significant contribution to charting the human family tree.

Neanderthal artistry
In a second study, also published by PNAS, Zilhão takes more of a head-on approach to another big question surrounding the Neanderthals: Did human invaders outsmart them? Some scientists have suggested that modern humans prevailed over Neanderthals because they were better at symbolic thinking, based on the evidence that humans created cave paintings and ornaments back then.

But when Zilhão and his colleagues looked at the bones and shells found in two Spanish caves inhabited by Neanderthals 50,000 years ago - 10,000 years before the first signs of modern humans turn up in Europe - they saw evidence of ornaments and painting that they called "literally, rock-solid."

	Zilhão et al. / PNAS
	The top photo shows both sides of a perforated shell (Pecten maximus) found in a Spanish cave. The lower pictures focus in on orange pigment stains.

Some of the shells they found were perforated, as if they could be worn on a string. That in itself doesn't prove anything, because such perforations could occur naturally or as the result of harvesting the molluscs for consumption. But the scientists also saw signs of mineral-based pigments being applied to the shells, in some cases right over the jagged edge of a perforation.

If the researchers' analysis is correct, the Neanderthals could have mixed up reddish goethite and hematite, yellow siderite and natrojarosite, black charcoal and sparkly pyrite to create a spectrum of paints. Some of the shells might have served as dishes holding the paint. The anthropologists even found a horse bone with flecks of orange pigment on the end.

"This naturally pointed bone may have been used as a stiletto for the preparation or application of mineral dyes or as a pin or awl to perforate soft materials (e.g., hides) that were themselves colored with such dyes," the researchers wrote.

In the past, skeptics have downplayed evidence of Neanderthal-made ornaments by saying that they may have actually been created by the human invaders, or that the Neanderthals were imitating human behavior without understanding what they were doing. The fact that this evidence was dated back to a time before humans arrived boosts the view that the Neanderthals had the smarts to come up with symbolic thinking on their own.

"The Iberian finds show that European Neanderthals were no different from coeval Africans in this regard, countering genetic/cognitive explanations for the emergence of symbolism and strengthening demographic/social ones," the researchers wrote.

All this doesn't settle the love-'em-vs.-fight-'em debate, but it does provide additional ammo for those who argue the Neanderthals were more like us than we sometimes give them credit for. That goes particularly for redheads. Check out these other reports on the Neanderthal mystery, and feel free to weigh in with your comments below.

More on the Neanderthals:

• Early human ate young Neanderthal
• Human suspect in Neanderthal murder mystery
• First draft of Neanderthal genome revealed
• Neanderthals were likely poised for extinction
• Neanderthals beat mammoths, so why not us?
• Neanderthals made mammoth jerky
• Three subgroups of Neanderthals identified
• Neanderthals lacked projectile weapons
• Were Neanderthals done in by competition?
• Skull suggests human-Neanderthal link
• Naughty Neanderthals nixed monogamy
• Who would win gold in caveman Olympics?
• Tooth discovery suggests Neanderthals traveled
• Me Neanderthal, me talk good
• Humans strange, Neanderthals normal
• Did our big brains come from Neanderthals?
• Neanderthals may have been cannibals
• Neanderthals grew up faster than we do
• Scientists find Neanderthals' last refuge
• Neanderthal 'Frankenstein' built
• Interactive: Before and after humans
• A Neanderthal's DNA tale

The researchers behind the tooth study include Bayle and Zilhão as well as Roberto Macchiarelli (Université de Poitiers, France), Erik Trinkaus (Washington University, St. Louis), Cidália Duarte (Câmara Municipal do Porto, Portugal) and Arnaud Mazurier (CRI-Biopôle-Poitiers, France).

The researchers behind the study of shells and bones include Zilhão as well as Diego Angelucci (Universita degli Studi di Trento), Ernestina Badal-Garcia and Valentin Villaverde (Universidad de Valencia), Francesco d'Errico (CNRS and University of the Witwatersrand), Floreal Daniel and Lare Dayet (Universite de Bordeaux), Katerina Douka, Thomas Higham and Rachel Wood (University of Oxford), Maria Jose Martinez-Sanchez, Carmen Perez-Sirvent and Josefina Zapata (Universidad de Murcia), Ricardo Montes-Bernardez (Fundacion de Estudios Murcianos Marques de Corvera), Sonia Murcia-Mascaros and Clodoaldo Roldan-Garcia (Universidad de Valencia) and Marian Vanhaeren (CNRS).

The PNAS reports use the spelling "Neandertal" rather than Neanderthal, but I've revised that spelling in the quotes above for consistency's sake.

Join the Cosmic Log team by signing up as my Facebook friend or following b0yle on Twitter. And pick up a copy of my new book, "The Case for Pluto." If you're partial to the planetary underdogs, you'll be pleased to know that I've set up a Facebook fan page for "The Case for Pluto."

• Symphony of Science: Carl Sagan and friends sing again
• Discovery Space: 'Wiped out' by supernova? No way!
• Popular Science: Scientists name the era before Earth
• ScienceDaily: 8% of our gene code comes from virus 

Genome.gov

Scientists say deciphering the DNA in cells will be a key frontier for the next decade.

A decade from now, doctors could well be giving checkups to the bacteria in your digestive tract, super-smart computers could be responding to your unspoken thoughts, and a new green revolution could be well under way. At least that's the way more than a dozen experts on science and technology see it in a series of essays offered up today by the journal Nature.

As great as all that sounds, the experts make it clear that not everything about the world in 2020 will be bright and shiny. In some cases, you might not think the future is worth the price you'd have to pay.

For example, take the idea of direct brain-computer interfaces. "The majority of search queries will be spoken, not typed, and an experimental minority will be through direct monitoring of brain signals," Peter Norvig, director of research at Google, writes in his essay about the future of Internet search. "Users will decide how much of their lives they want to share with search engines, and in what ways."

That last part hints at the privacy debate ahead: If computers can read your mind, how can you be sure you've closed the door to your brain? Today's experiments with brainwave-computer interfaces, such as the system that lets you "tweet with your brain," could open the door to tomorrow's cyber-snoops.

Norvig also says search engines will be moving beyond popularity to assess the relevance and quality of information on the Internet.

"Measures of quality require better models of the concepts and relations expressed in documents and how they relate to the reality of the world, as well as models of the trustworthiness of authors," Norvig writes. "Thus, a site that claims that the moon landings were a hoax and seems to have a coherent argument structure will be judged to be lower quality than a legitimate astronomy site, because the premises of the hoax argument are at odds with reality."

Scientists may think that's a good idea when applied to moon-hoax conspiracy theorists, intelligent-design backers or black-hole doomsayers - but such an algorithm also could help authorities stack the deck when it comes to Net-moderated discussions of political or social issues in places like present-day Iran or China.

Medical promise and peril
Personalized medicine has even more good-news, bad-news potential in the decade ahead. So far, researchers haven't made as much headway as they had hoped when it comes to connecting the human genetic code with human diseases and capabilities. Why is that? For one thing, relatively few humans have had their full genome sequenced, which has given geneticists a meager data set to work with.

That situation is rapidly changing, thanks to the falling cost of gene sequencing and the rising market for DNA services. "Over the next decade millions of people could have their genomes sequenced," says David Goldstein, director of the Center for Human Genome Variation at Duke University's Institute for Genome Sciences and Policy.

As we learn more about the genome, we're likely to find that disease risks are determined by the interaction of many genetic factors. During the next decade, Goldstein says geneticists could well discover lots of low-frequency, high-impact risk factors for diseases such as schizophrenia, epilepsy and autism.

"The identification of major risk factors for disease is bound to substantially increase interest in embryonic and other screening programs," he writes. "Society has largely already accepted this principle for mutations that lead inevitably to serious health conditions. Will it be so accommodating of those who want to screen out embryos that carry, say, a twentyfold increased risk of a serious but unspecified neuropsychiatric disease?"

Goldstein says the time to debate the ethics and the practicalities of personalized genetic screening is now.

Gut check ... literally!
Another big theme in the future of medicine is the analysis of the human microbiome - that is, the microbial communities that live inside your gut and other organs. Some of the more stubborn and hard-to-diagnose diseases that afflict us - such as obesity, diabetes and autoimmune disorders - may have as much to do with our microbes as with our own genome.

David Relman, chief of infectious diseases at the Veterans Affairs Palo Alto Health Care System in California, says that the microbiome is really our "extended self," but adds that we are "relatively ignorant" about how it works. That is likely to change over the next 10 years.

"By 2020, personalized health care could involve doctors monitoring the metabolic activities of a patient's gut microbes and, possibly, modulating them therapeutically," says Jeremy Nicholson, head of Imperial College London's department of surgery and cancer.

Future climate
Several experts said climate change could force dramatic shifts in the world's energy economy. Jeffrey Sachs, director of the Earth Institute, says a "new world environmental organization" should be established to provide the technical know-how for heading off the worst climate effects and adapting to the effects that can't be avoided. He also predicts that societies will have to come up with new approaches to public-private investment in environmental technologies and international development.

"Global financing for poorer countries must improve if international agreements on climate, land use and biodiversity are to succeed," Sachs writes. "The record of aid delivery to poor countries is dismal. Rich countries regularly promise support that never arrives. Two proposals have been made that could improve things: a small tax on cross-border financial transactions, and a global levy on carbon emissions."

Sachs says both proposals should be implemented, along with the more traditional forms of international aid.

David Kammen, director of the Renewable and Appropriate Energy Laboratory at the University of California at Berkeley, agrees that it is "essential to put a price on carbon emissions, through either well-managed cap-and-trade schemes or carbon taxes." Can we afford to make the energy transition? Can we afford not to? Kammen supports experiments in creative financing, such as his own lab's Property-Assessed Clean Energy mechanism, to make it easier for homes and businesses to buy into a new energy economy.

If societies throw their support to more efficient, renewable energy technologies, by 2020 "the world would be on the way to an energy system in which solar, wind, nuclear, geothermal and hydroelectric power will supply more than 80 percent of electricity," Kammen writes.

All this is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to this week's visions for 2020. For the full set of essays, including the outlook for laser fusion and drug discovery, check out Nature's special report. The journal is providing an online forum to discuss the outlook for the next decade, but you can also throw in your comments right here. Don't miss our earlier discussion about "decades of future science." And to find out how fallible forecasters can be, take a look back at my three-year-old technology forecast for 2012.

Join the Cosmic Log team by signing up as my Facebook friend or following b0yle on Twitter. And pick up a copy of my new book, "The Case for Pluto." If you're partial to the planetary underdogs, you'll be pleased to know that I've set up a Facebook fan page for "The Case for Pluto."

What emblem best signifies the end of the space shuttle era? NASA has selected its 15 finalists for a mission patch symbolizing the conclusion of the shuttle program, currently scheduled for this fall. The CollectSpace Web site has the whole batch on view.

A panel of judges at the space agency selected the finalists from more than 80 entries that were submitted over the past few months by the shuttle program's past and present workers. The same judges will select the winning patch in February, after NASA conducts an internal, informal poll to come up with a "People's Choice" selection. Judges will take the internal poll's results into account when they choose the official end-of-program patch.

CollectSpace will be conducting its own "fan poll" from Jan. 11 to Jan. 29. Check in with the Web site or Space.com for further details.

Here are a few more links to explore:

• Physics arXiv Blog: The collider and the great black hole 
• National Geographic: 'Lost' Amazon complex found
• New Scientist: Is China set to dominate science?
• Nature: New year, new science

WFUBMC

Anthony Atala conducts research in his lab at the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine. One of his projects involves bioengineered rabbit penises.

When the late author John Updike wrote the novel "Rabbit Redux," it's a sure bet that he didn't have rabbit penises in mind. And yet the story behind rabbit penises redux - or, to use a less Latinate phrase, rabbit penises brought back to life - is a tale worth retelling.

The research into restoring penile function in bunnies, conducted at the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine in North Carolina and published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in November, was the top vote-getter in this year's unscientific Newsvine poll for the Weird Science Awards. The "Weirdies" recognize 10 of the strangest scientific stories published over the previous year.

Rebuilding rabbit penises may indeed sound strange, but there's a serious point behind the research. (No smirking!) The procedure, which involves growing erectile tissue on a bioengineered scaffold of collagen, is aimed at helping humans once it's perfected.

"Patients with congenital anomalies, penile cancer, traumatic penile injury and some types of organic erectile dysfunction could benefit from this technology in the future," the researchers wrote.

The procedure could provide more of a normal life for children who have congenital defects in this particular area, said Anthony Atala, a pediatric urologist who led the research team. "One of the major challenges that we find is babies who are born with inadequate organs, and right now there are not a lot of options," he told me.

Atala estimated that more than 1,000 boys are born each year in the United States with penile problems. "We've had inquiries from parents with babies who were born with some of these issues," he said.

In the recently published study, the researchers found that the grafted tissue continued to work as the rabbits developed. "It does grow with the animal," Atala said. The key finding was that the rabbits with transplanted tissue could father offspring - while the control group without the bioengineered transplants didn't even try.

Because the research was published just a couple of months ago, there's not much new to report - and Atala declined to estimate when humans might start undergoing the procedure. "We always think it's going to happen sooner than it does," he said.

But Atala hopes the basic technology can eventually be applied not just to penises, but to other body parts as well. Similar methods have already been used to repair bladders. His team is working to grow 22 types of tissues and organs in the lab. In five or 10 years, will we be hearing stories of kidneys redux, or hearts redux? Stay tuned ...

Other Weird Science updates:
Another Weirdy went to the story about the future's plan to stop the Large Hadron Collider. In November, that plan went awry. The world's largest and most expensive particle accelerator was restarted without incident and went on to smash some atom-smashing records. Right now the LHC is on winter break, but it's due to resume operations in February and begin scientific experiments in earnest.

This week, Fermilab physicist Don Lincoln, the author of "The Quantum Frontier," pointed me to a new YouTube video by Kat McAlpine, the creator of the "Large Hadron Rap." The new video addresses the LHC's black-hole controversy. "If you are still afraid for the future, this rap is all about why you shouldn't be," McAlpine writes. Thanks for the tip, Don!

The tale of the gay penguins that fostered a chick at a German zoo also made the top 10 - but gay-penguin parenting is actually old news. Last year's big story on the gay-penguin beat was the breakup of Harry and Pepper, the San Francisco Zoo's penguin pair, in a love triangle that included a "home wrecker" female named Linda.

Yet another Weirdie went to the story about the nude "Mona Lisa," and that's also the subject of a book published in Italy a couple of months ago, titled "The Mona Lisa's Veil." Art expert Renzo Manetti claims that Leonardo da Vinci painted a "heavenly" and a "vulgar" version of the same woman to represent the two sides of the goddess Venus - but says that the original nude painting vanished.

"Even though the painting has been lost, there are at least 10 reproductions or comparable works, painted by pupils or disciples, which enable us to reconstruct the original," Manetti writes. He counts the recently found nude painting as one of those copies.

The inside view on outer space:
In addition to selecting the 10 Weirdy awards, Cosmic Log readers have picked the top space story of 2009, and the top space trend to watch in 2010. Check out the "Year in Space" roundup for the results, and you'll also find a preview of this year's expected top space stories from NBC News space analyst James Oberg.

Join the Cosmic Log team by signing up as my Facebook friend or following b0yle on Twitter. And pick up a copy of my new book, "The Case for Pluto." If you're partial to the planetary underdogs, you'll be pleased to know that I've set up a Facebook fan page for "The Case for Pluto."

• 'Nova' on PBS: 'Killer Subs in Pearl Harbor'
• Independent: Antarctic's first plane found in ice
• BBC: Researchers say G-spot doesn't appear to exist
• Univ. of Buffalo: Virtual clay jump-starts design process
• N.Y. Times: Where did the time go? Don't ask the brain
• Aviation Week: Person of the year? 'The space entrepreneur'

Biju Boro / AFP - Getty Images file

A multiple-exposure image shows the various stages of a total solar eclipse on July 22, 2009, as seen from India. A similar sight will be visible over the South Pacific this year on July 11.

How do you follow up on the "Eclipse of the Century" and a magic act that made Saturn's rings disappear? The night sky had plenty of highlights to offer during the past year - but the year ahead promises to be just as stellar. You can look forward to an annular solar eclipse in January, a South Pacific brush with totality in July, a high-rising lunar eclipse in December, and more celestial sights in between. Here are some of the high points for skywatching in 2010:

Jan. 15: Annular solar eclipse: The best-known solar eclipses involve totality, during which the moon blots out the entire disk of the sun, as seen from a narrow section of Earth's surface. But the relative positions of the moon and sun can vary due to orbital variations, and that means the moon's disk sometimes doesn't quite cover up the entire sun. A thin ring of the sun's disk can still be seen all the way around the dark moon during this kind of event, known as an annular eclipse (from "annulus," Latin for "ring"). The Jan. 15 annular eclipse can be seen from parts of Africa and Asia, as indicated by this NASA Web page and this animated image. If you're in position to watch it in person, be sure not to gaze directly at the sun, even during the height of the eclipse. If you're not in the track of the eclipse, you might be able to catch it via the Web. (Eclipse Webcasters may include the University of North Dakota and the Hong Kong Observatory ... stay tuned for details next week.)

Jan. 29: Mars comes close: Remember those e-mails you hear about every August, supposedly alerting you to Mars' close approach? Those alerts were actually referring to a historic encounter in 2003, when the Red Planet came within 34.7 million miles. This year's close approach isn't nearly that close - 61.7 milion miles - but it still provides the best opportunity in a couple of years to see the planet, particularly with a medium-size telescope that can bring out surface details.

Feb. 16: Venus-Jupiter conjunction: Two of the brightest planets in the night sky come within half a degree of each other. Unfortunately, it will be all too easy to lose the planets in the glare of the setting sun. After sunset, pull out your binoculars and check the area above and slightly to the left of where the sun dips beneath the horizon. You should see Venus just below and to the left of Jupiter.

March 28: Venus-Mercury pairing: For two weeks in late March and early April, you can spot the two closest-in planets traveling together in the west-northwest sky just after sunset.

April 24: Astronomy Day, Part 1: Two dates during the year have been recognized as "Astronomy Day," when stargazing clubs around the nation and around the world organize special activities. Check the Astronomical League's Web site for more about April's events.

June 20-21: Comet McNaught in view? Comet McNaught C/2009 R1 was discovered last year by Australian comet-hunter Rob McNaught. Colorado Mountain College's Jimmy Westlake predicts that it could put on a "nice show" around solstice time, particularly if you're using binoculars. "Look northwest after sunset June 20 and in the northeast before sunrise June 21," he writes. "If I am right, this could be an unforgettable view."

June 26: Partial lunar eclipse: Earth's shadow will take a bite out of the full moon before sunrise over the western United States, but the best places to see this eclipse are in the Pacific and Asia. Check out NASA's eclipse guide for the details.

July 11: Total solar eclipse: This year's brush with totality can be seen from a swath of the South Pacific and a tiny bit of southern Chile and Argentina. Most eclipse-chasers have probably already lined up their cruise-ship reservations, and Easter Island provides the best vantage point for land-based viewing. If you're not in a position to make your own expedition, you can bet there'll be Webcasts of the event.

Aug. 11-12: Perseid meteor shower: The Perseids rate as the Northern Hemisphere's best summer meteor shower. This year's show should be better than usual, largely because it will be unsullied by the moon's glare. Experts project that viewing rates could hit 90 meteors per hour under peak conditions.

Sept. 21: Jupiter in opposition: The solar system's biggest planet is practically as big as it can get in the night sky, due to its position with relation to the sun and Earth. A medium-size telescope should bring out details in Jupiter's banded cloud patterns.

Oct. 16: Astronomy Day, Part 2: The year's second Astronomy Day takes place, and AstronomyDay.org is one of the online sites with information about events. 

Oct. 20: Comet Hartley 2 passes by: This comet makes its closest approach to Earth on Oct. 20, coming within 11.2 million miles. Space.com's Joe Rao says Comet Hartley 2 "should briefly become a naked-eye object" in morning skies, although you'd have to get far away from city lights to see it. In early November, the Deep Impact spacecraft will observe the comet from a distance of about 600 miles.

Dec. 13-14: Geminid meteor shower: The Geminids are generally considered one of the year's most reliable meteor showers - that is, if the moon's glare doesn't interfere. The moon is due to set soon after midnight for this year's show, which could produce peak rates of 120 meteors per hour.

Dec. 21: Total lunar eclipse: North America is perfectly placed for a total lunar eclipse that occurs while the moon is just about as high in the sky as it ever gets. If winter skies are clear, this is a must-see event to close out the skywatching year.

This listing draws upon sky previews by Jimmy Westlake for Steamboat Today, Joe Rao for Space.com and Daniel Fischer for Skyweek.

Join the Cosmic Log team by signing up as my Facebook friend or following b0yle on Twitter. And pick up a copy of my new book, "The Case for Pluto." If you're partial to the planetary underdogs, you'll be pleased to know that I've set up a Facebook fan page for "The Case for Pluto."

• Daily Mail: The real Frankenstein experiment (via Daily Grail)
• Wired Danger Room: 10 sci-fi weapons that actually exist
• h+ Magazine: Top 5 technology panics of 2009
• Steve's Astro Corner: Carnival of Space 135