Astronomers have been looking for alien worlds for more than 15 years, and now you too can join the search.

The Planet Hunters project is the latest citizen-science campaign organized by the crew at Zooniverse. Hundreds of thousands of computer users are already helping Zooniverse classify galaxies through Galaxy Zoo, and analyze lunar craters through Moon Zoo. This new project aims to recruit users to check data gathered by NASA's Kepler mission, which is expected to detect hundreds of Earthlike planets in a region of the constellation Cygnus.

Kepler's science team detects planets by looking for the slight dimming in a star's light that's caused when a planetary disk passing over. By making precise measurements of that periodic dimming, astronomers can figure out how big the planet is, then follow up with other types of observations to confirm its existence and estimate its mass.

More than 500 planets have been detected beyond our solar system, and Kepler is just getting started.

"The Kepler mission will likely quadruple the number of planets that have been found in the last 15 years, and it's terrific that NASA is releasing this amazing data into the public domain," Yale astronomer Debra Fischer, a pioneer in the search for exoplanets, said in a news release.

The Planet Hunters project is not tied directly to the Kepler mission, but will serve to complement the studies being done by the Kepler team. The first big public release of Kepler data is scheduled to occur in February.

Astronomers are using computers to crunch the data from the Kepler probe and look for planet candidates. "But computers are only good at finding what they've been taught to look for, whereas the human brain has the uncanny ability to recognize patterns and immediately pick out what is strange or unique, far beyond what we can teach machines to do," Meg Schwamb, another Yale astronomer and Planet Hunters co-founder, said in today's news release.

Right now, the Planet Hunters program is compatible with the Firefox, Safari, Chrome and Opera Web browsers. "We aim to bring support for other browsers, including Internet Explorer, in early 2011," the organizers say.

When users log onto the Planet Hunters website, they'll be asked to answer a series of questions about a light curve from a distant star. The answers to those simple questions will help the Yale astronomers determine whether that particular star is displaying a pattern of dimming that could point to the existence of a planet.

"The great thing about this project is that it gives the public a front-row seat to participate in frontier scientific research," Schwamb said.

The online search process may have to be tweaked as time goes on, because it can be difficult to pick out the weak signal created by an Earth-scale planet as it crosses an alien sun. "Planet Hunters is an experiment — we're looking for the needle in the haystack," Fischer said.

But Galaxy Zoo has already proven that regular folks can make a real contribution to science. Several Galaxy Zoo users have been listed as co-authors on the more than 20 published scientific papers that have resulted from the project. The organizers of Planet Hunters are hoping to achieve a similar feat.

"When you join Planet Hunters, you're contributing to actual science — and you might just make a real discovery," said Yale astronomer Kevin Schawinski, who was involved in Planet Hunter's genesis as well as Galaxy Zoo's creation.

More about the planet search:

• How many alien Earths? More than expected
• How do you find life on an alien planet?
• Interactive: The search for other planets
• Interactive: The new solar system

Peter Trusler via Cambridge U. Press

A Leaellynasaura hatching emerges in this illustration by Peter Trusler, published in "The Artist and the Scientists." Click to see a slideshow tracing the process of turning fossils of long-dead species into artistic reconstructions of those species.

How do you turn a bunch of bones into a gorgeous picture of a Gorgosaurus? In a newly published book, two paleontologists and an artist from Australia describe the process that's worked for them for more than 30 years.

"The Artist and the Scientists: Bringing Prehistory to Life" is a 320-page coffee-table volume that packs in scores of beautiful images of long-extinct species, ranging from the Precambrian era to the megafauna that humans may have had a hand in wiping out. But the point of the book isn't merely to present pretty pictures.

The Monash Science Center's Patricia Vickers-Rich and her husband, Museum Victoria's Thomas Rich, write about the paleontological groundwork that they do to figure out how extinct species looked — and how they lived. Freelance artist Peter Trusler, who was trained in zoology at Monash University, writes about how he builds on that groundwork to flesh out his pictures of those species. But it's clear that their method is not just a one-way assembly line leading from the fossils to the finished product.

"Sometimes the horse leads the cart, and sometimes the cart leads the horse," Trusler told me.

The way Trusler sees it, his illustrations are often "another one of the investigative tools in science to try to increase our understanding." And the Riches appreciate what he does.

"Peter is not only an artist," Thomas Rich told me. "He's also a very well-qualified scientist. He could have easily gone down that academic route, so you're not talking about a person who just draws pretty pictures."

Patricia Vickers-Rich agreed: "He's basically a scientist, too. He just happens to be a scientist who has a good style of art. ... We've got a very special guy there."

Trusler, who will be going for his Ph.D. under Vickers-Rich's guidance, goes out on expeditions just like the other scientists. "In some cases, I've sent Peter in the field in place of me," Vickers-Rich said. "If there was not a lot of money, I would send him."

Tom Rich recalled the time Trusler went out and gathered up some ginkgo leaves, then cut incisions into the leaves to get an idea of what the ancient Ginkgoides australis species looked like. Trusler often asks questions about how a particular anatomical feature might have worked, or how a creature's surroundings might have looked in ancient times. "If we couldn't provide the answers, he would go out and find a way to supply the answers," Rich said.

It's not cheap to document the discoveries made by paleontologists, Vickers-Rich pointed out. Supporting the effort requires major-league fundraising.

"It doesn't just come in your back door and somebody says, 'Here's $100,000, now go for it,'" she said. "Therefore, if you're going to do something like that, you need to be as accurate as you possibly can. From the point of view of a scientist, why would want a generic background? If you're going to put something out there that's unique, you don't want to just paint a green tree. You've got to know what kind of leaves to put on it. You have to know how tall it might have grown. You have to know the soil type. You have to know the geochemistry ... you need to know all that. I think what makes this art somewhat different from a great number of art pieces out there is, that care has been taken. If you're going to do generic, you just don't do what I do."

The better-than-generic results of the team's labors are on full display in the book — fossils gathered during the Riches' travels in Australia, New Zealand, Asia, the Americas, Africa and eastern Europe, plus sketches and paintings by Trusler that end up providing a photorealistic view of the past. The artist as well as the scientists are based in Australia, so much of their story is set Down Under. But their work has become known worldwide.

Peter Trusler

This panorama of ancient megafauna was created for an Australian stamp panel. Top row, left to right: Genyornis newtoni, Diprotodon optatum, Procoptodon goliah. Bottom row: Magalania prisca, Thylacoleo carinfex and Thylacinus cynocephalus. Click to see a slideshow tracing the process of turning fossils of long-dead species into artistic reconstructions of those species.

The weirdest pictures come not from the age of the dinosaurs, but from earlier or later — from the Precambrian, for example, a time when body plans apparently took on strange shapes that are hardly ever seen today. Or from the time when giant birds and mammals ruled the roost in Australia, just before the humans arrived.

You won't find feathered dinosaurs amid the pages of "The Artist and the Scientists," but stay tuned. Thomas Rich says he's focusing in on sites in Australia that are similar to China's Liaoning deposits, where the best evidence of dinosaur feathers has been found.  Right now he has his eye on fossil beds near Koonwarra. "That's where we should go and look really hard for feathered dinosaurs," he said.

Meanwhile, Trusler is trying to figure out how to render a particular species of ichthyosaur, the ancient marine reptiles that ruled the seas while the dinosaurs held sway on land. "I don't have an idea in my head about what the final appearance of this animal is going to be," he said. "Your creativity is at play to a certain degree all the time, but the ultimate product is quite a mystery."

Thankfully, it's a mystery Trusler doesn't have to tackle alone. That's the main message of "The Artist and the Scientists."

"It's not simply a step-by-step process, in terms of me translating something that's set in concrete," Trusler said. "The process is quite an interactive one, and it always will be."

Be sure to click through "Bringing Prehistory to Life," a slideshow featuring photos and illustrations from "The Artist and the Scientists," published by Cambridge University Press.

Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page or following @b0yle on Twitter.

EMSL

The cyanobacteria known as Cyanothece 51142 can produce hydrogen as well as oxygen, researchers say.

An ocean microbe may open a new frontier in the search for clean, renewable energy: In a sense, it makes hydrogen — a clean-burning fuel — out of the air.

The bug, a cyanobacterium called Cyanothece 51142, performs photosynthesis during the day and fixes nitrogen at night. Hydrogen is a byproduct of the nitrogen fixation process. And when you burn hydrogen, the main byproduct is water.

"This fits in very nicely in the overall green energy concept of going directly from sunlight and CO2 production to production of hydrogen," Himadri Pakrasi of Washington University in St. Louis told me.

All cyanobacteria make oxygen by splitting water — that's the photosynthesis part, he said. That oxygen, however, is toxic to nitrogenase, the key protein that fixes nitrogen and produces hydrogen.

"This bug has figured out how to do both in the same cell by using a diurnal cycle," Pakrasi said.

During the day, the bug fixes carbon dioxide via photosynthesis and stores it away in glycogen — a bunch of glucose molecules stored in one place. At night, it draws on this stored energy.

"The energy that is coming out of this glucose utilization is then used for the nitrogenase reactions, which in turn produces hydrogen," Pakrasi said.

What makes this strain of cyanobacteria outclass others, he added, is that "they know how to divide up all the things they are supposed to do in a day into daytime and nighttime activities."

The bug produces five to 10 times more hydrogen naturally than any other bug known, but we are still a long way from establishing the infrastructure for a hydrogen economy and putting these bugs to work in the real world, Pakrasi noted.

The problem comes down to engineering and physics, he said.

"Hydrogen is tomorrow's energy carrier, not today's energy carrier, because it is not the energy itself, it is how to deliver the hydrogen at the place where it is going to be used," he said.

Unlike coal and oil, hydrogen is not energy-dense. For example, to run a truck on hydrogen with today's technology would require the truck's fuel tank to be half the size of the cargo load.

Use of palladium to store hydrogen and thus make it easier to use is prohibitively expensive, he added.

"We as scientists would love to talk about how our own personal new findings are going to solve the world's energy future," Pakrasi said. "But we are not there yet."

To date, the research has been done in the lab. The next steps will be to scale up the technology and deploy it in the real world.

Pakrasi and colleagues describe the findings in the Dec. 14 online issue of Nature Communications.

More stories on hydrogen and energy

• Researchers report fuel cell breakthroughs
• Cosmic Log: Hope, hype and hydrogen
• Hydrogen researchers step on the gas
• How bacteria could help power the future

 John Roach is a contributing writer for msnbc.com. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by hitting the "like" button on the Cosmic Log Facebook page or following msnbc.com's science editor, Alan Boyle, on Twitter (@b0yle).

ESA JHelioviewer Team

A prominence suspended above the solar surface is seen in this screenshot from the program JHelioviewer developed by the European Space Agency. The solar image was taken by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory.

Sun seekers of the scientific sort need to travel only as far as their computer to get their fill, thanks to new visualization software that puts the entire library of images from the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory at their fingertips.

The Java-based JHelioviewer allows users to make movies of the sun, add color to the images as they wish. and then process the movies in real time. The data could be used, for example, to make a movie of a mega-filament eruption such as the one experienced earlier this month, or a time-lapse movie of solar storms.

The program gives users access to more than a million images from SOHO, and new images from NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory  are being added daily. All told, more than 15 years worth of imagery is available.

"We wanted to make it easy to view solar images from different observatories and instruments, and to make it easy to make movies," Daniel Mueller, deputy project scientist on SOHO at the European Space Agency, said in a news release. "Before, it took hours to combine images from different telescopes to make a movie of the sun for a given period. With JHelioviewer, everyone can do this in minutes."

JHelioviewer can be downloaded here. A Web-based image browser, Helioviewer.org, complements the desktop software.

Sun-seekers of another sort can browse these images and daydream about their next beach vacation.

More stories about SOHO and SDO:

• Sun-watching probe turns an amazing 10
• Comet eaten by the sun as spacecraft watches
• Solar tsunamis move at astronomical speed
• Huge solar storm could hit Earth again
• Spectacular sights come from solar probe
• Sun-watching probe launched on second try
• Magnetic loops shown erupting from the sun

John Roach is a contributing writer for msnbc.com. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by hitting the "like" button on the Cosmic Log Facebook page or following msnbc.com's science editor, Alan Boyle, on Twitter (@b0yle).

This delicate shell, photographed by the Hubble Space Telescope, appears to float serenely in the depths of space, but this apparent calm hides an inner turmoil. The gaseous envelope formed as the expanding blast wave and ejected material from a supernova tore through the nearby interstellar medium.

The Hubble Space Telescope has gifted us this festive-looking image of a bauble of gas serenely floating in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a Milky Way satellite galaxy that's about 160,000 light years from Earth.

This is no mere Christmas ornament, though. The delicate shell of gas hides the violent turmoil behind its creation: The envelope formed as the expanding blast wave and ejected material from the explosion of a dying star tore through the nearby interstellar medium.

According astronomers with the Space Telescope Science Institute, the explosion was a particularly violent supernova known as a Type Ia, which results when a white dwarf star in a binary system robs its partner of material. Once the greedy white dwarf finally takes on more mass than it can handle, it violently explodes.

The ripples in the shell's surface may be caused either by subtle variations in the density of the surrounding interstellar gas — or are perhaps driven from within the bauble by fragments from the initial explosion. The ornament-like bubble, called SNR B0509-67.5, is 23 light-years across and expanding at more than 11 million miles (18 million kilometers) an hour, according the analysis team.

Astronomers say the supernova occurred about 400 years ago and might have been visible to Southern Hemisphere observers around the year 1600, though there are no records of a "new star" — as supernova were erroneously called — in the direction of the Large Megallanic Cloud near that time.

Hubble's Advanced Camera for Surveys observed the supernova remnant on Oct. 28, 2006, with a filter that isolates light from the glowing hydrogen seen in the expanding shell. To make the image shown here, these observations were combined with visible-light images of the surrounding star field that were imaged by Hubble's Wide Field Camera 3 on Nov. 4 of this year.

More information on supernovae:

• Physicists replicate a supernova in laboratory
• Supernova blast wave could shape galaxy evolution
• Scientists identify brightest supernova
• Star death may explain universe's biggest bangs
• New type of supernova discovered
• Supernova nightmares
• New risk to Earth from supernova explosions

John Roach is a contributing writer for msnbc.com. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by hitting the "like" button on the Cosmic Log Facebook page or following msnbc.com's science editor, Alan Boyle, on Twitter (@b0yle).

Orbital Sciences Corp.

An artist's conception shows Orbital Sciences' proposed space vehicle making a rendezvous with the International Space Station.

Several industry teams — reportedly including Orbital Sciences and Virgin Galactic — are vying to build new crew-worthy spaceships for NASA's use.

Today was the deadline for companies to provide NASA with proposals for spacecraft that could transfer astronauts to and from the International Space Station. Such spacecraft would help fill the gap left by the expected retirement of the space shuttle fleet next year. The call for proposals follows up on an earlier round of $50 million in funding that's being disbursed under NASA's Commercial Crew Development program, or CCDev. This round is known as CCDev 2.

The companies making CCDev 2 bids weren't required to announce publicly what they were doing, but a few companies have confirmed their participation:

SpaceX

SpaceX's Dragon capsule, shown here in an artist's conception, has had an initial test.

SpaceX spokeswoman Kirstin Brost told me today that "we filed a proposal" for CCDev 2 funding. SpaceX did not participate in the first round of CCDev work, in part because there wouldn't have been enough money available to do what the California-based company needed to do to upgrade its Dragon capsule for crewed flight. However, SpaceX is receiving $278 million from NASA under a separate program to develop a space cargo delivery system, known as Commercial Orbital Transport Services or COTS. Just last week, SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket and the Dragon aced their first COTS demonstration flight.

Boeing

An artist's conception shows Boeing's CST-100 orbital capsule.

The Boeing Co. sent out a news release confirming that it submitted a proposal to push ahead with development of its CST-100 spacecraft. It is already receiving $18 million in CCDev funding from NASA for the project, which envisions a seven-person capsule that can be used up to 10 times. Among Boeing's partners are Bigelow Aerospace, a Nevada-based venture whose inflatable space modules could serve as additional destinations for the CST-100; and Virginia-based Space Adventures, which would arrange orbital transport packages for spaceflight participants who would pay their own way.

Orbital Sciences Corp. "did submit a proposal for Commercial Crew Development 2," company spokesman Barron Beneski told me today. Virginia-based Orbital is receiving $171 million under the COTS program to develop its Taurus 2 rocket and Cygnus cargo capsule, but it didn't participate in the initial CCDev round. Beneski declined to tell me anything else about Orbital's proposal, other than to say "we intend to comment on it later this week."

Space News reported that Orbital was teaming up with Virgin Galactic, the New Mexico-based suborbital space company that's backed by British billionaire Richard Branson. The publication said Orbital's craft would be a lifting body capable of carrying four passengers initially, with an option to carry up to six later. The craft would be launched toward the space station from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida atop an Atlas 5 rocket, and make a runway landing back on Earth at the end of its journey.

California-based Scaled Composites is currently testing Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo rocket plane as well as the White Knight Two carrier aircraft for future suborbital space tours. Space News said that Virgin would sell commercial seats on Orbital's craft, and ferry the spaceship between its landing strip and the Cape using White Knight Two. Such an arrangement would follow through on Branson's stated aspirations to get involved in orbital spaceflight.

Sierra Nevada's Dream Chaser would be a lifting body, as shown in this artist's conception.

Tonight, Space News added yet another nugget: It said Virgin would announce a separate CCDev 2 bid that's led by Sierra Nevada Corp. That Nevada-based company is receiving $20 million in CCDev 1 funds to work on its Dream Chaser space glider. Moreover, SpaceDev, a Sierra Nevada subsidiary, is already working on the hybrid rocket engines that are to be used on SpaceShipTwo. Last week, Aviation Week reported that Sierra Nevada was looking at NASA's mothballed X-34 space plane prototype as a testbed for the Dream Chaser development effort. Ironically, the X-34 started out as an Orbital Sciences project for NASA.

There are lots of questions yet to be answered about these proposals — and more generally about CCDev 2:

• Who else is in the running? Besides Boeing and Sierra Nevada, the other companies funded under CCDev 1 include Blue Origin, Paragon Space Development and United Launch Alliance. Some of the other players in the CCDev competition may make themselves known in the days to come, but they're under no requirement to do so.
• How much money is at stake? NASA has said it expects to award about $200 million during this round of funding, but that's dependent on how much money is appropriated for the program by Congress.
• When will these new spaceships be flying? Orbital is reportedly talking about test flights as early as 2014. SpaceX has said it could have its crew-capable Dragon ready within three years after striking a deal with NASA, which would imply a potential 2014 time frame. Sierra Nevada is also targeting 2014 for the Dream Chaser's first flight. And Boeing says it expects to begin crewed flights of the CST-100 by 2015. So under the current best-case scenario, NASA would be facing a three-year gap between the retirement of the shuttles and the start of commercial crew missions.

NASA is due to announce who gets the money in March.

Update for 3 p.m. ET: Orbital Sciences has issued a news release confirming that it submitted a proposal calling for the development of a "blended lifted body" that could be launched on United Launch Alliance's Atlas 5 or other expendable rockets. "The design derives from studies performed by Orbital for NASA under the Orbital Space Plane program between 2000 and 2003," the company said.

The spaceship would seat four astronauts, as reported by Space News. Orbital said its major suppliers would include Thales Alenia Space, Northrop Grumman, Honeywell and Draper Laboratory and United Launch Alliance. I've added an artist's conception of the Orbital blended lifted body to the top of this item.

Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page or following @b0yle on Twitter. 

NASA

The lights of Las Vegas have an angelic glow when viewed at night from the International Space Station.

John Roach says:Have you been naughty or nice? Visitors to Las Vegas might have to scratch their heads and think twice before they offer up an answer. The desert city is famous for its casinos and nightclubs full of indulgences that would leave Santa shaking his finger with a knowing twinkle in his eye. When viewed from above at night, Sin City simply twinkles with millions of forgiving lights, as seen in this Nov. 10 image from the International Space Station.

Since Las Vegas is surrounded by desert, the brightly lit city pops out like a sparkling pendant on a black dress. The Strip — the 4-mile-long section of Las Vegas Boulevard where a few dozen of the world's largest hotels and casinos are located — is reputed to be the brightest spot on Earth. Its radiance will get another boost on Wednesday when the $3.9 billion, 2,995-room Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas opens for business.

To make this and other nighttime images, astronauts track their target with a handheld camera as the space station zips along at more than 15,000 miles per hour relative to Earth’s surface. Advances in digital camera technology — combined with experience —have make it easier for space station crews to acquire striking images of Earth at night.

For those of us wishing we could forget what happened in Vegas ... well, let's just hope the crew doesn't take any close-ups.

Check in with Photoblog and Cosmic Log every day until Christmas for a new view of Earth as seen from outer space -- and check out the links below for the previous pictures in our Advent calendar, as well as three other online calendars with space themes:

• The Cosmic Log Space Advent Calendar so far
• Door 1 for Dec. 1: Shuttle in spotlight
• Door 2 for Dec. 2: 'Alien' lake seen from space
• Door 3 for Dec. 3: Egypt's river of light
• Door 4 for Dec. 4: Tallest building reaches for the sky
• Door 5 for Dec. 5: Russia's dazzling delta
• Door 6 for Dec. 6: Space skipper vs. the world
• Door 7 for Dec. 7: Pearl Harbor from the heavens
• Door 8 for Dec. 8: Listening for E.T.
• Door 9 for Dec. 9: Blast from the past
• Door 10 for Dec. 10: Volcano caught in the act
• Door 11 for Dec. 11: Chronicling climate change
• Door 12 for Dec. 12: Happy St. Lucy's Day
• The Big Picture at Boston.com: Hubble Advent calendar
• Planetary Society: Solar system Advent calendar
• Zooniverse Advent calendar

John Roach is a contributing writer for msnbc.com. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by hitting the "like" button on the Cosmic Log Facebook page or following msnbc.com's science editor, Alan Boyle, on Twitter (@b0yle).

Linda Parysek via The Cell

This photomicrograph showing mitochondria in a mouse cell is part of an online image database launched today.

For many of us, the wonders of cell biology came alive when we peered through a microscope at an amoeba in science class. Today, a new online image library of cells brings that same sense of wonder and magic to anyone with an Internet connection.

The library contains more than 1,000 images, videos, and animations of cells from a variety of organisms — from the Chinese hamster (Cricetulus griseus) to humans (Homo sapiens).

The database aims to advance research on cellular activity with the ultimate goal of improving human health, according to the American Society for Cell Biology, which has created the database in partnership with Glencoe Software and the Open Microscopy Environment.

"In our research of disease, one of the key features is to understand the mechanism of disease — and that is going to happen, in many cases, at the cellular level," David Orloff, manager of The Cell image library, told me.

For example, the library will make it possible for scientists to compare different cell types online and understand the nature of specific cells and cellular processes, both normal and abnormal. This may lead to new discoveries about diseases, as well as new targets for drug development.

T. Anderson, D. Benson via The Cell

This image of a rat neuron highlights concentrations of a protein called N-cadherin (shown in red) as well as key chemical receptors (shown in green and blue).

"By looking at our database of cells, a scientist could get information that can confirm or refute a hypothesis or even develop a new hypothesis," project principal investigator Caroline Kane, a professor emeritus of molecular and cell biology at the University of California at Berkeley, told the journal Clinical and Translational Science.

On another level, Orloff told me that the database could serve as a tool to teach the basics of disease: "If someone puts an image of cancer cells dividing [in the library] and you can watch a cancer cell and its division and growth into a tumor versus a normal cell's growth, there's going to be an awareness for the researcher."

The database serves as a publicly accessible educational resource for anyone interested in the wonders of cell biology. Think of it as science class without the stress of a pending exam — alhough students may want to study up anyway. "I've talked with a number of teachers who are very excited to have something like this to present in their classrooms," Orloff said.

Development of The Cell was funded by a $2.5 million grant made available under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. In other words, this is stimulus money at work "to serve the public in an effort to cure disease ultimately — and advance scientific research," Orloff noted.

More stories on cell biology:

• The moving parts inside your cells
• Amoebas turn to family during tough times
• Beauty of science revealed in embryo images
• Slideshow: Nikon Small World wonders
• It's alive! Artificial DNA controls life

John Roach is a contributing writer for msnbc.com. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by hitting the "like" button on the Cosmic Log Facebook page or following msnbc.com's science editor, Alan Boyle, on Twitter (@b0yle).

Jimmy Westlake / Colorado Mountain College

A Geminid meteor streaks across the night sky, with circular star trails whirling the background, in a time-exposure photo made by astronomer Jimmy Westlake in December 1985.

December isn't exactly prime time for sitting out in the cold and dark, but tonight could be the exception: The most productive meteor shower of the year is due to reach its peak tonight. Don't just take it from me -- you can ask the experts yourself during a series of online chats building up to the Geminid meteor shower.

There's lots that's appealing about this year's Geminids: Astronomers say the shooting stars could be spotted at a rate of more than one per minute under peak conditions (the equivalent of 60 to 120 per hour). The moon is in its first-quarter phase, meaning that it'll be setting around midnight and won't be glaring in the sky during the peak viewing hours (midnight to morning twilight). Earth is projected to pass through the thickest part of the meteor debris stream during the wee hours of the morning for North Americans, who are in just about the best position to see the maximum flash.

So what's the problem? Why aren't the Geminids as highly anticipated and well-known as the Perseids of August or the Leonids of November. Well, the biggest drawback is that it's c-c-c-cold out there this time of year. That means it's more important than ever to bundle up, have a comfortable lounge chair and sleeping bag at the ready, and bring along hot beverages to keep warm.

This chart indicates the radiant for the Geminids -- the point in the sky from which the meteors appear to emanate.

The best viewing is available far from the glare of city lights, where you have an unobstructed view of as much of the sky as possible. Geminid meteors are so named because they appear to emanate from a point in the constellation Gemini. But the shooting stars can appear anywhere in the sky, so don't just stare at Gemini. There's no need to gaze through binoculars, though you may want to take them along to see other celestial points of interest.

The early reviews are already streaming in, and it's a strong thumbs-up: Peak rates rose to as high as 40 meteors per hour last night, according to statistics gathered by the International Meteor Organization.

Exactly when and where should you go skywatching tonight? And what will you see? Three online tools can help you sort out those key questions:

• When? NASA's Fluxtimator is a Java-based online application that lets you specify your location, date, viewing conditions and the meteor shower you're interested in -- and then shows you how many meteors you could expect to see. Today, it's telling me that I might spot 80 meteors per hour at 1 a.m. PT if I'm in the countryside around the Seattle area. That's assuming that the skies are clear.
• Where? The Clear Sky Chart is a fantastic database that gathers up weather data for skywatching hot spots in the United States, Canada and parts of Mexico, and translates all those readings into graphical charts showing you what to expect at a particular location, hour by hour. You can get a quick read on whether it's likely to be cloudy or clear, what the atmospheric "seeing" conditions will be, and when dawn is due to start breaking. I can see already that the forecast is not that great for my favorite viewing spot, Rattlesnake Lake in the Cascade foothills.
• What's it all about? NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center has set up an online chat about the Geminids with meteor experts Danielle Moser and Rhiannon Blaauw. They can provide a preview of the event, advice for skywatching, and the science behind the meteor phenomenon. The main event starts at 11 p.m. ET, when NASA astronomer Bill Cooke presides over a late-night meteor chat. That's due to last until 5 a.m. ET.

One of the big mysteries surrounding the Geminids has to do with their origin. Annual meteor showers like the Perseids and Leonids are generally fueled by the gritty debris left behind by a comet that just happened to cross Earth's orbit. When those bits of rock hit the upper atmosphere at a speed of 22 miles per second, air friction causes them to vaporize -- leaving behind the glowing streaks we associate with shooting stars.

The weird thing about the Geminids is that it's thought to be caused by debris from an orbit-crossing asteroid rather than a comet. The asteroid Phaeton, to be precise. Astronomers have come around to the view that Phaeton may have started out as a classic comet but eventually lost its ice, leaving the rocky core we see today. The leading hypothesis is that Phaeton's rock becomes fractured due to thermal stresses when it passes close to the sun, and leaves behind fresh trails of debris during each orbit. But there are some things about that hypothesis that don't quite add up.

"The Geminids are my favorite, because they defy explanation," Cooke observed in a NASA preview that explains the mystery more fully.

For general advice about maximizing your viewing experience, review my top 10 meteor-watching tips from August. And if you miss tonight's show due to weather or holiday-season weariness, never fear: The Geminids are expected to provide encore performances through the next few nights. Then it'll be only a few more days until the next celestial extravaganza: the total lunar eclipse on Dec. 20-21.

Update for 1:10 p.m. ET: The MeteorWatch.org website is keeping track of meteor sightings around the world. To share your shooting-star reports via Twitter, just include the term #meteorwatch and your location in your tweet. That way they'll show up on this Meteor Map.

Update for 3 p.m. ET: NASA is using a Java-based client for the Geminids chat, so you'll have to have Java enabled in order to participate. The chatsters are getting lots of great questions, and I expect it will be the same tonight when Cooke is on the show. Starting this afternoon, you should be able to watch live video from Marshall Space Flight Center's "meteor-cam," via the same Web page used for the chat.

Got a celestial sighting to report? Share your skywatching experiences as a comment below. You can also connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page or following @b0yle on Twitter. 

Peter Hoey

Looking for a science book to give? We have a whole bushel basket of recommendations, ranging from picture books for kids, to cosmic brain-teasers for grownups.

This is the big season for books -- and not only because of the holidays: Lots of year-end book awards are decided at this time of year, including the AAAS/Subaru SB&F Prize for Excellence in Science Books. The prizes were established in 2005 by the American Association for the Advancement of Science, with sponsorship from Subaru, to celebrate outstanding science writing and illustration for children and young adults.

I was honored to find out that my book about the planet debate was nominated in the young-adult category this year. All the nominees were impressive, as you'll see below. And so, without further ado, here are the winners and other nominees in each of the SB&F (Science Books & Films) categories:

 Young adult science books:

"The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks" by Rebecca Skloot is the winner in this category. Skloot's highly acclaimed book tells the story of Henrietta Lacks, an African-American woman with cervical cancer who had a sample of her tumor removed in 1951. Neither she nor her family knew that the sample was used to give rise to the immortal HeLa cell line, the first successful tissue culture. The HeLa cells have played a vital role in a wide range of medical research projects. Skloot focuses on the science and the ethics of the HeLa saga, as well as the personal story of Lacks (who died just months after her diagnosis) and her family. The book is being adapted into a film project for HBO.

Other young-adult finalists include:

"The Case for Pluto," my little volume about the centuries-old quest to identify and classify planets, with particular attention given to America's favorite dwarf planet.

"The Disappearing Spoon: And Other True Tales of Madness, Love and the History of the World From the Periodic Table of Elements," by Sam Kean.

"Every Bone Tells a Story: Hominin Discovery, Deductions and Debates," by Jill Rubalcaba and Peter Robertshaw.

Children's science picture books:

"Magic School Bus and the Climate Challenge," by Joanna Cole with illustrations by Bruce Degen, is the winner for picture books. Program manager Heather Malcomson says this is a well-researched and balanced look at "the potentially controversial and polarizing subject of global climate change." Ms. Friz uses hippos, sunbeam slides and "microscope-goggles" to explain the greenhouse effect, carbon footprints and other complexities of climate science in a way that elementary and secondary-school students will understand. "I wish many adults would read and understand even this much about the science of climate change," Malcomson said.

Other finalists include:

"Bones: Skeletons and How They Work," by Steve Jenkins, which uses kid-friendly illustrations based on cut-paper collages to show how skeletons are put together.

"Lizards," by Nic Bishop, a colorful book that traces the capabilities and peculiarities found among the world's 5,000 species of lizards.

"Why Do Elephants Need the Sun?" by Robert E. Wells. This tale of an elephant illustrates the interconnectedness of the natural world and reveals the many roles played by our closest star.

Middle-grade science books:

"The Hive Detectives: Chronicle of a Honey Bee Catastrophe," by Loree Griffin Burns with illustrations by Ellen Harasimowicz, is the winner here. "This beautifully illustrated book describes the organization of an artificial beehive and how beekeepers care for their bees and extract honey from the hives," Malcomson said. "Much of the text focuses on colony collapse disorder and how a team of scientists is working with beekeepeers to understand the nature and cause of the disease."

Other finalists include:

"Kakapo Rescue: Saving the World's Strangest Parrot," by Sy Montgomery with photographs by Nic Bishop. This 80-page book traces efforts to stave off the extinction of the kakapo parrot on a small island off southern New Zealand.

"The Secret of the Yellow Death: A True Story of Medical Sleuthing," by Suzanne Jurmain, recounts the work of scientists and volunteers from Cuba and the United States to find the cause of yellow fever.

"The Story of Snow: The Science of Winter's Wonder," by Mark Cassini with John Nelson, uses drawings, photos and easy-to-understand prose to explain why snowflakes are the way they are.

Hands-on science books:

"The Book of Potentially Catastrophic Science: 50 Experiments for Daring Young Scientists," by Sean Connolly, is the winner. It's intended for upper elementary and/or middle-school students. Each of the experiments is rated on a 1-to-5 scale, with 5 being the most potentially hazardous. No scientific apparatus is necessary. One experiment makes use of popping popcorn kernels to illustrate the concept of radioactive half-life. Another experiment lets kids calculate the speed of light by using the published frequency of a microwave oven and the melting of marshmallows. It sounds as if one of the hazards may have to do with all those calories!

Other finalists include:

"Insect Detective," by Steve Voake with illustrations by Charlotte Voake. The Voake cousins team up to produce an easy-to-read guide to bugs you can find close to home: wasps, ants, solitary bees, moths, caterpillars and the like. Seven activities are laid out for detectives who want to continue their neighborhood sleuthing.

"Nature Science Experiments: What's Hopping in a Dust Bunny," by Sudipta Bardhan-Quallen with illustrations by Edward Miller. This book outlines the scientific process and delves into topics ranging from the DNA in cheek cells to the hiding places of dust mites.

"You Are the Earth: Know Your World So You Can Help Make It Better," by David Suzuki and Kathy Vanderlinden. Suzuki is a well-known Canadian environmental activist who teams up with Vanderlinden to outline activities that demonstrate the connections linking cultures and ecosystems.

The prize winners in each category will receive $1,500 and a plaque during the AAAS' annual meeting in Washington in February. There'll be other announcements as well: AAAS and Subaru will award $5,000 worth of science books to public schools in the District of Columbia, the Kids' Choice Award will be revealed, and Subaru will kick off a book donation program.

For more about the SB&F finalists, check out the roundup in this week's issue of Science.

More books for grownups:

Even adults will enjoy some of the books listed above (including, ahem, that Pluto book), but here are 10 more suggestions that include prize-winners, personal favorites and books I haven't yet read but want to:

"The Age of Wonder: How the Romantic Generation Discovered the Beauty and Terror of Science" by Richard Holmes. (Winner in 2010 Communication Awards announced by National Academies.)

"Brain Cuttings: Fifteen Journeys Through the Mind," by Carl Zimmer. This collection of essays traces weird and wonderful experiments in neuroscience -- and is something of an experiment itself. It's available exclusively in e-book formats.

"The Calculus Diaries: How Math Can Help You Lose Weight, Win in Vegas and Survive a Zombie Apocalypse," by Jennifer Ouellette with illustrations by Jason Torchinsky.

"The Grand Design," by Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow. I've already written a couple of postings about this mind-bending book.

"How to Teach Physics to Your Dog," by Chad Orzel. If my dogs can learn quantum mechanics, maybe I can too. But what was it that Richard Feynman said? "I think I can safely say that nobody understands quantum mechanics." Arf!

"Life Ascending: The Ten Great Inventions of Evolution," by Nick Lane. (Winner of 2010 Royal Society Prize for Science Books.)

"Normal at any Cost: Tall Girls, Short Boys and the Medical Industry's Quest to Manipulate Height," by Susan Cohen and Christine Cosgrove. (Winner in 2010 NASW Science in Society Awards)

"Packing for Mars: The Curious Science of Life in the Void," by Mary Roach. Check out my Q&A with Roach.

"Portraits of the Mind," by Carl E. Schoonover. This looks like the year's coolest coffee-table book for science types. Check out the slideshows offered by The New York Times and The Guardian.

"Proofiness: The Dark Arts of Mathematical Deception," by Charles Seife. Even MSNBC comes in for a ding or two in Seife's examination of mathematical fallacies that have found their way into society's meme machine.

Are there other recently published science books on your wish list, or on your list to give to others during the holidays? Old favorites with a scientific flavor? Feel free to add your recommendations in the comment section below. 

The illustration from the journal Science's book roundup is republished here with the kind permission of Peter Hoey.

Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page or following @b0yle on Twitter.

Money is not what it used to be. It doesn't seem to go nearly as far, for one thing. Perhaps even more worryingly, credit and debit cards allow what money we do have to be spent without us feeling the immediate consequences. Thankfully, scientists at the MIT Media Lab have created a set of wallets to help us keep our spending in check.

"We make the same swiping motion whether we're buying a cup of coffee or a large-screen TV -- or even worse, automatic transactions go on without our knowledge at all. Our actions are divorced from the consequences," John Kestner, one of the wallets' creators, explained to me in an e-mail.

"So the wallets bring back some of that physical sensation of money, which gives us a more immediate, visceral sense when we're making purchasing decisions, than remembering to check your bank statement each time."

The team has developed three prototypes of the so-called Proverbial Wallets. Each communicates with your bank account via a Bluetooth connection with your cell phone. "There's an app on the phone which does this as securely as any online transaction," Kestner said.

The Bumblebee wallet buzzes through a vibrating motor whenever your bank processes a transaction. This establishes a connection between handing over a credit card for a purchase and your virtual cash. A buzz in your pocket when you're not actually at the register could be a sign of fraud -- or it could mean an automatic deduction is being taken out.

The Mother Bear model helps keep budget-conscious folks on task. A hinge inside makes it harder and harder to open as money gets tighter and tighter.

For those lucky enough to have a puffed up bank account -- and are proud of it -- the Peacock model may be the best option. "The wallet shrinks and swells to reflect the balance in your accounts. Your assets will be on display to attract potential mates," the team explains on its project Web site.

Of course, as with any gadget designed to save us from ourselves, you've got to spend money to save money. When the technology hits store shelves, expect about a $60 ding to your bank account. If that seems like a lot, be thankful that Kestner feels a bit out of touch with his creative side.

"If I were more of an artist," he said, "I'd enjoy the irony of charging a lot for these."

More stories on money and technology:

• Cell phone money transfer service unveiled
• Dwolla a new player in electronic money transfers
• Second Life bank crash foretold financial crisis
• Online game gets real-world banking license

John Roach is a contributing writer for msnbc.com. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by hitting the "like" button on the Cosmic Log Facebook page or following msnbc.com's science editor, Alan Boyle, on Twitter (@b0yle).

ESA / DLR / FU Berlin

New images of the northwestern rim of the Schiaparelli impact basin add to growing evidence of Mars' watery past.

Evidence of Mars' watery past is on full display in this new image of the Schiaparelli impact basin along the Martian equator. The entire basin is nearly 300 miles (460 kilometers) wide. The image from the High Resolution Stereo Camera on the European Space Agency's Mars Express spacecraft zeros in on the northwestern rim, which cuts diagonally across this image from the top left to the bottom right. A 26-mile-wide (42-kilometer-wide) crater is embedded in the rim.

ESA astronomers interpret the dark sediments on the floor of the Schiaparelli basin as evidence for water -– resembling sediments that are deposited by evaporated lakes on Earth. The effect of other geological processes can be seen in the image, such as smaller craters created by the fallback of material that was ejected during the initial impact. Some of these were partially flooded and filled with watery deposits. Flows of lava appear to have created smooth plains.

The sediments forming the smooth plains in the lower left of the image have been modified by erosion -- either by wind, or water, or both -- to form sharp contours. In other places, material deposited by the wind forms hills and dunes.

The impact basin is named after the Italian astronomer Giovanni Schiaparelli. He is best-known for his observations of Mars, including an 1877 map of the planet that showed straight dark lines he interpreted as natural water-filled channels called "canali" in Italian. Some people thought he meant artificial irrigation canals, leading them to believe they were created by intelligent Martians.

We now know that the "canali" were just illusions created by the telescope technology of the time, and that there are no water-filled canals on the Red Planet. But the latest images from Mars Express add to mounting evidence that the planet had a watery past that helped shape and sculpt the planet we view today.

More information on Mars' watery past and present:

• Young Mars crater contains water ice, photo shows
• Water reshaped Mars more widely than thought
• Water on Mars announced 10 years ago
• Some Mars channels carved by lava, not water
• NASA confirms water on Mars
• Gullies mark most recent water flow on Mars
• Once-habitable lake found on Mars

John Roach is a contributing writer for msnbc.com. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by hitting the "like" button on the Cosmic Log Facebook page or following msnbc.com's science editor, Alan Boyle, on Twitter (@b0yle).

ESO

An artist's impression shows Pluto with its largest moon, Charon, facing a distant sun.

Who killed Pluto? Who said it was dead? The dwarf planet is still kicking, thanks to a new book by its "killer" as well as new rounds of research that reference the icy world.

The Pluto-killer, of course, is Caltech astronomer Mike Brown -- who along with his colleagues found a world on the solar system's icy frontier that outweighed Pluto. The discovery of that bigger world, now known as Eris, set off an international debate that led to Pluto's removal from the International Astronomical Union's official list of planets in 2006.

Brown (whose Twitter handle is @plutokiller) tells the story of the planet quest and Pluto's setbacks in a book titled "How I Killed Pluto and Why It Had It Coming." But the book is as much about his own life as a scientist and a father. Brown's daughter, Lilah, was born during the very time that his biggest scientific discoveries were coming to light.  

Brown told me it would have been "impossible" to tell the scientific story without including the story of Lilah's birth and babyhood. "They are so intertwined in my life that I can't help but mix them," he said. "Lilah's birth and the mere fact that she was a week earlier than I anticipated changed the way some of the astronomy happened. I couldn't tell either story without mixing the two together."

Even as the book was being written, Lilah was drawn into the Pluto drama.

"When she started being conscious of the book and the title of the book, she didn't really think much about whether Pluto should be a planet or not, but she was pretty sure that killing was bad," Brown said. "And so maybe six months ago, she became angry at me for having killed Pluto. She would tell me that killing is bad, and I shouldn't do it, and I should make Pluto come back. I should unkill Pluto."

Bob Paz

Caltech astronomer Mike Brown is the author of "How I Killed Pluto and Why It Had It Coming."

Brown said Lilah eventually reconciled herself to her father's ways. She told him to keep looking for a new planet -- and if he ever found one, would he please name it Pluto? Now that the book has finally come out, she's positively proud of her planet-killing pop. "She's no longer mad at me," Brown said. "Now she goes around and tells everybody that her daddy killed Pluto."

The 45-year-old professor said his 5-year-old daughter has done a good job of winning over her peers. "The kindergartners all think it's great," Brown said. "The parents are a little less sure what to think."

I can't help but imagine Lilah as a rebellious teenager, wearing a "Save Pluto" T-shirt just to spite her father. That might liven things up at the Brown household: Mike Brown said he feels a continuing obligation to explain why it makes the most sense to think of the solar system as having eight planets, plus smaller non-planets that just happen to include Pluto and the half-dozen or so worlds he has had a hand in discovering. After all, that's why he wrote the book.

"I would be very glad to be done with it," he said of his Pluto-killing role. "I do actually think that these issues and these questions and these conversations are profound for our solar system, so I think they're worth having. I wouldn't argue, like some people, that they don't matter ... that they're just semantics. I do think they matter profoundly. So as long as the discussion is continuing, then I think I will feel the need to be part of it."

You might think Brown would be more interested in boosting the status of the worlds he found. In the book, he tells how his wife, Diane, tried to keep him from dissing his own discoveries. And in fact, for a while he was OK with seeing Eris as "the 10th planet." But as the debate continued, Brown came around to the opinion that the solar system's list of planets had to stop at eight.

Divisions in the solar system
It's not so much that Brown defends the IAU's controversial definition of planethood. Brown said the definition was "pretty crummily written" but nevertheless ended up expressing the right concept. For Brown, the bottom line is that the eight largest things that go around the sun are in a special category for which the name "planet" should be reserved.

"Right now in the solar system, we are perhaps lucky, or perhaps it's a matter of physics ... but we have a solar system that draws a very strong line between the eight largest objects, which are in circular orbits and dominate the solar system; and everything else, the next biggest thing being Pluto or Eris, flip a coin. That division is easy to see and to make," he said.

"The funny thing that will happen is if there is something out there that someone finds that breaks that very clear division," Brown continued. "Something bigger than Mercury that is in a non-circular orbit and kicked around by the giant planets. It seems almost inevitable that something like that is out there. ... And when that object is found, it won't be a question about Pluto at that point, it will be a question of, 'OK, what is this?' It is going to be a difficult argument to say that something that's bigger than Mercury shouldn't be a planet. I'll make it, but I'm not sure I'm going to win that one."

Brown said he's still on the hunt for just that type of planet, somewhere on the very fringe of the solar system, "because there's nothing more fun than making astronomers argue all over again." He's involved in the SkyMapper project to survey the Southern Hemisphere's skies from Australia -- a celestial frontier that's not been as thoroughly explored as northern skies.

Pluto in the press
Of course, Brown doesn't have to wait until something bigger than Mercury shows up to have an argument, or at least a discussion. For some reason, Pluto and its little pals just keep coming up as topics for astronomers to talk about:

• A month ago, astronomers reported that they took a fresh set of measurements for Eris' size, and came to the conclusion that it was about the same size as Pluto or perhaps even a bit smaller. Brown noted that the comparative size "doesn't matter at all" when it comes to the dwarf planets' status in the solar system. What's more, Eris is known to be about 25 percent more massive than Pluto -- which would suggest that the two worlds have different compositions.
• In contrast, the similarities between Pluto and Eris are highlighted in an article appearing in Nature this week. The article was written by Alan Stern, a planetary scientist at the Southwest Research Institute who heads up the science team for NASA's New Horizons mission to Pluto. Stern observes that the surface composition of the two dwarf planets are "surprisingly similiar," with the abundance of nitrogen at 90 percent or more, and methane at 10 percent or less. The similarities extend as well to Triton, a moon of Neptune that is thought to have originated in the same zone that gave rise to Pluto and Eris. Stern said recent reports suggest that New Horizons' findings "will be of relevance to a broader suite of small planets common to the outer solar system."
• Just today, researchers reported in the journal Science that some of Earth's precious metals must have been left behind by a collision with a Pluto-sized celestial body 4.5 billion years ago. The lead researcher, Bill Bottke, is a colleague of Stern's at the Southwest Research Institute. "The populations that were hitting Earth, the moon and Mars were pretty top-heavy," Bottke told Space.com. "Most of the mass was in the big guys." Big guys? He's talking about Pluto-sized objects, right?

Such references demonstrate that Pluto isn't dead yet. Lilah Brown needn't have worried so much about her father's murderous ways: Pluto is still out there, secure in its orbit. Scientists (including Brown) are still fascinated by dwarf planets and seeking to learn their secrets. Regular folks are fascinated by the story of Pluto's ups and downs -- which is why people keep writing about it. That goes for Brown's book as well as my own, "The Case for Pluto," which takes up the other side of the argument.

The interest in Pluto and its kin is likely to rise even higher in 2015 -- when New Horizons is due to fly by Pluto while NASA's Dawn probe settles into orbit around another dwarf planet, Ceres in the asteroid belt. (Dawn's rendezvous with the asteroid Vesta is likely to be one of next year's astronomical highlights.)

Brown's book provides yet another opportunity to read about, think about, and talk about how we see the cosmos around us -- and whether you think Pluto is dead or alive, that's a good thing.

More about 'How I Killed Pluto and Why It Had It Coming':

• Bad Astronomy: How to settle the 'What's a Planet' debate
• On Point: The man who killed Pluto (and other space odysseys)
• Universe Today: Q&A with Mike Brown, Pluto killer
• Daily Kos: How I killed Pluto
• New York Times: When a heavenly body got the boot
• The Atlantic: Read an excerpt from 'How I Killed Pluto'

More about 'The Case for Pluto: How a Little Planet Made a Big Difference':

• 80 years of Pluto
• A Pluto pilgrimage
• Pluto maps raise new questions
• Interactive: The new solar system
• More Cosmic Log coverage of Pluto
• Read an excerpt from 'The Case for Pluto'

Correction for 2 p.m. ET Dec. 10: I think of the Southwest Research Institute so much as SwRI that I mistakenly wrote Southwest "Regional" Institute. Thanks to Brent Markus for pointing out the error.

Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page or following @b0yle on Twitter.