G. Neukum / FU Berlin / DLR / ESA

A stereo image from the European Space Agency's Mars Express orbiter, based on data acquired in 2004, shows the shield volcano known as Tharsis Tholus. Use red-blue glasses to see the 3-D effect.

NASA's 3-D video of the asteroid Vesta is a stunner, but there are other places you can go in the solar system using red-blue glasses.

Take Mars, for example: Last month the European Space Agency released pictures of the semi-gigantic Tharsis Tholus volcano, which rises 5 miles (8 kilometers) above the Martian surface and spans 75 miles.

G. Neukum / FU Berlin / DLR / ESA

This image of the 5-mile-high Martian shield volcano known as Tharsis Tholus is color-coded to reflect elevation. The lowest elevations are in green, violet and purple. The highest elevations are in red and brown.

It's no Olympus Mons, which is 16 miles high and as big as the state of Arizona, but it's big nevertheless.

The stereo image from ESA's Mars Express orbiter looks right down the wide throat of Tharsis Tholus' caldera. ESA notes that at least two sections have collapsed around the volcano's eastern and western flanks during 4 billion years of geological history, leaving behind scarps that are several miles high.

The color-coded elevation map at right provides another way to get a sense of the terrain, but you can't beat 3-D glasses for giving you the sense that you're hanging right over the caldera's 20-mile-wide maw.

Stuart Atkinson, an educator and amateur astronomer from Britain, has mastered the trick of producing 3-D imagery from NASA's Opportunity rover on Mars, and he regularly posts pictures to his "Road to Endeavour" website. In last week's status report on Opportunity's progress, Atkinson shared several red-blues, including the vista shown below.

S. Atkinson / NASA / JPL-Caltech / Cornell

Ridges rise up in this Martian vista, seen by NASA's Opportunity rover as it studies Endeavour Crater.

Here's what Atkinson says about the picture:

"Just imagine you’re there. ... Imagine you’re slogging up that ridge in your heavy, bulky spacesuit, with your ragged, exhausted breathing rasping in your helmet. ... Eventually you reach the top of the ridge and pause for breath, hands on your knees, bent over. ... When you look up you find yourself looking down at the floor of Endeavour, at the dark dust dunes rippled across it, at the waves of wind wafting gently over it. ... Then you lift your eyes and see, on the far side of the great crater, the eastern hills, shining orange and gold in the sunlight. ...

"People will actually do that for real one day.

"How I envy them."

Me too.

Mercury was another target for stereo pictures, this time taken by NASA's Messenger probe. The picture below is a red-blue combination showing the floor of 19-mile-wide Kertesz Crater. Messenger acquired the image data in July, but the photo was released last month. The floor of the crater is covered with the "hollows" that made headlines during a recent Messenger science briefing, and the 3-D effect gives the imagery an extra dimension.

NASA / JHUAPL / CIW

This is an anaglyph created from two images of Mercury's Kertesz Crater. Use red-blue glasses to see the 3-D effect. With this anaglyph, better results may be achieved by tilting the head slightly to the left.

How to see in 3-D
By now you're probably wondering where to get the red-blue glasses you need to see the 3-D effect. Inexpensive cardboard spectacles are generally inserted in 3-D books or DVD packages — but for the pictures that you see on this page and on most other websites, you'll want to make sure you have the red-blue (or red-cyan) filters rather than amber-blue or green-magenta filters.

The red-blue glasses may be available at novelty shops, and you can also order them online. Here's a list of vendors from NASA. In addition to the outlets on NASA's list, there's Amazon.com and 3DGlasses.net. NASA even provides instructions for making your own 3-D glasses.

Today I gave away free 3-D glasses to the first 10 folks to go to the Cosmic Log Facebook page and post a comment specifically asking for them.  Don't worry, there'll be another 3-D giveaway once I scrounge up some more of the cardboard glasses. The red-blue specs are provided courtesy of Microsoft Research, which includes 3-D imagery in its WorldWide Telescope astronomy software. (Microsoft and NBC Universal are partners in the msnbc.com joint venture.)

Once you have your glasses, click through these links to sample more 3-D goodies from outer space:

• Take a wild ride over Vesta in 3-D
• NASA's past and future in 3-D
• See the asteroid Vesta in 3-D
• See the ultimate space shot in 3-D
• Explore the 3-D depths of Mars
• Get a fresh 3-D look at Phobos
• See a Martian crater in 3-D
• See a Martian milestone in 3-D
• See the Martian arctic in 3-D
• See more depths of Mars in 3-D
• 3-D delights from Mars
• Still more from Mars in 3-D
• Go on a space mission in 3-D
• See the moon's marvels in 3-D
• Saturn's moons in 3-D
• More from outer space in 3-D
• Fly through a nebula in 3-D
• Cosmic Log's 3-D-O-Rama

Last updated 11:50 p.m. ET.

Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter and adding the Cosmic Log page to your Google+ presence. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.

Getty Images file

In this file photo, a worker holds a white rat in a lab. Scientists have developed a 3-D model of a rat brain research, they report in a new study.

After six years and several million dollars, scientists have created a 3-D model of a rat brain circuit.

The accomplishment is a first step toward creating a complete computer model of the brain that will allow a deeper understanding of how our noggins work — and what causes them to malfunction, according to the scientists behind the feat.

They did so because studies in their lab and elsewhere have shown that a single whisker is able to detect, in complete darkness, whether a gap is safe to jump over and, if so, trigger the order to jump. 

What's more, there's a specific region of the brain "that is dedicated to processing information from a dedicated whisker," Marcel Oberlaender, a researcher at the institute and the first author of a paper explaining the research in the journal Cerebral Cortex, told me today.

That region is called the cortical column, a vertically-organized series of connected neurons that form a brain circuit and an elementary building block of the cortex. 

The cortex is the part of the brain responsible for many of the higher functions, such as memory and consciousness.

To build the model, the researchers studied the cortical column in awake and anesthetized rats as well as brain slices and then used computer software and other tools to reconstruct it.

"The model we built is really based on a complete reconstruction of these nerve cells," Oberlaender said. "So how the model looks in the end resembles how it would look in the real animal."

It is composed of 16,000 neurons, each of which can be divided into one of nine different cell types that has characteristic functional, structural and connectivity properties, he added.

The model can now be used to run computer simulations that show, in realistic detail, how signals flow within the brain. So, they can begin to understand, for example, what neurons fire as the rat detects the gap and decides whether or not to jump.

Until now, researchers have only been able to see how a single neuron or a small group of neurons interact during such a process. "We can now, in simulation experiments, mimic what is really going on in these circuits," Oberlaender said.

Going forward, the researchers should be able to use the methodology developed to build this model to add more parts to it, thus incorporating other brain functions such as the motor system that sends a signal down the spinal cord and makes the limbs move so that rat can jump over the gap.

More on brain science and technology:

• 3-D brain model could revolutionize neurology
• Test-tube brain aces 'plop' quiz
• 'Brain in a dish' may lead to stroke recovery
• Cat brain inspires computer of the future
• IBM unveils brain-like chip
• Breakthrough chip mimics human brain function

John Roach is a contributing writer for msnbc.com. To learn more about him, check out his website. For more of our Future of Technology series, watch the featured video below.

The way David Attenborough sees it, pterosaurs and 3-D documentaries were made for each other, even though they're separated by 65 million years.

"You want to have something that moves not just in 2-D across the ground, but goes up as well," he said. That makes the flying reptiles an "obvious subject" for a 3-D movie, Attenborough added.

He should know: The 85-year-old British broadcaster and naturalist has been doing nature documentaries for the BBC for more than 50 years — and what's more, he's the brother of Richard Attenborough, the actor who welcomed scientists to "Jurassic Park" in that classic 1993 dino-flick.

So it's hard to think of anyone better-suited to be the writer and narrator of "Flying Monsters 3D," a big-screen documentary due for its North American opening on Oct. 7.

The movie, which had its British theatrical release earlier this year, blends computer-generated graphics with field trips to fossil beds and laboratories. In the process, a wide variety of pterosaur breeds are virtually resurrected.

Paleontologists say the creatures came to dominate the skies of the Cretaceous era, just as dinosaurs dominated the land below. "The story of how that came about, and why eventually they died out, is what the film is about," David Attenborough told journalists during a Monday teleconference.

The 3-D special effects in "Flying Monsters" take their cue from "Avatar," but there's much more mixing of the Cretaceous and the modern world. At one point, pterosaur bones laid out on a table assemble themselves and take off. And during one of the movie's concluding scenes, a Quetzalcoatlus with a 40-foot wingspan pulls alongside Attenborough as he's sitting in the cockpit of a glider.

Atlantic Productions / ZOO

A long-extinct pterosaur known as Quetzalcoatlus seems to fly alongside host David Attenborough in a digitally created scene from "Flying Monsters 3D."

"I originally thought I might do that in a hang glider. ... Unfortunately, the insurers wouldn't let me do that, so I had to do it in the glider," he quipped.

Attenborough said one of the challenges of the project was to make sure the movie stuck to the scientific story instead of turning into a 3-D monster chiller horrorfest. "It's no good just doing a film to say, 'Oh, yes, it's wonderful in 3-D,' but have no story behind it," he said.

The scientific story
Pterosaurs have been the subject of scientific debate for decades: Paleontologists have argued over whether they were cold-blooded or warm-blooded, whether they bore feathers or fur, whether they could take off from a runway or had to jump off a cliff in order to take flight. (One of the places Attenborough visited during the making of the movie was the famed "pterosaur landing strip" in southern France, which he compared to "a prehistoric Heathrow" airport.)

The creatures shown in "Flying Dinosaurs 3D" aren't your father's pterosaurs: They use their folded wings as forelimbs when they walk around on all fours — or when they launch into the air. Some have a coat of fine hairs known as pycnofibers, which serve as evidence that they were warm-blooded. And most of them sport colorful crests, which Attenborough considers a "reasonable" hypothesis.

"They were almost certainly colored, and they had structures on their heads which can best be explained as being like the crest of a bird, and were used in courtship," he said.

Atlantic Productions / ZOO

A crested pterosaur known as a Tapejara uses its folded forelimbs as it prepares for take-off in a scene from "Flying Monsters 3D."

Were pterosaurs actually birds? Pterosaurs had wings. (Check, although their wings could spread wider than bird wings.) They laid eggs. (Check, although their eggs were more like those of reptiles than modern-day birds.) They tended to group in colonies, as many species of birds do today. Pterosaurs and early birds co-existed during the Cretaceous ... but the mainstream view is that they came from different lines of the evolutionary tree.

Why did birds survive while pterosaurs die out? That's the 65 million-year question.

"Birds had feathers, stiff quills, but pterosaurs didn't have feathers," Attenborough said. "They didn't evolve feathers."

Instead, pterosaurs got their lift from membranes that were attached to their limbs and spread out during flight. Those membranes made it "very difficult to move around on the ground in a nimble sort of way," while birds "were able to run on the ground very well," Attenborough said. The way he sees it, that was a "crucial element" in the fight for survival when the era of the dinosaurs ended.

The rest of the story
Is that the way paleontologists see it? Mark Witton, a pterosaur expert at the University of Portsmouth, was one of the scientists who served as consultants for the film — and he was invited to a screening when the British version was ready for its release. "My hopes were high that everyone's favourite leathery-winged beasties were about to get their moment in the media sun," he wrote on the Pterosaur.net blog.

Atlantic Productions / ZOO

Dimorphodon flies through a jungle setting in a scene from "Flying Monsters 3D."

He came away impressed by the film's technical fireworks, but not so much impressed by the scientific claims. "Take, for instance, the way that we're explicitly told that pterosaurs were out-competed by birds and their ability to adapt to new ecologies, thus sealing the extinction of the more evolutionary-stagnant pterosaurs," he wrote. "Detailed analyses of bird and pterosaur diversity have either proved inconclusive on this issue ... or categorically stated that there's no evidence for bird-driven pterosaur extinction. ..."

Witton catalogs the movie's other scientific sins with the rigor that only a dedicated specialist could muster. "It really seems that, with a bit more care, this could've been as much of an achievement for effective scientific communication as it has been for 3-D technology, but it's really an enormous missed opportunity," he wrote.

Other pterosaur experts have provided more positive reviews. The University of Leicester's David Unwin, who was also a consultant for the film, praised the results in a video clip. "Films like this do a tremendous job of actually communicating in a really exciting way, and one that grabs your attention, the kinds of things that we've found out about pterosaurs," he said. "And what I really love is being able to see the animation and being involved in the process of trying to produce the best possible and most accurate animations."

What's a pterosaur fan to do? If you go see "Flying Monsters 3D," you'll want to sit back and enjoy the 3-D effects ... and then get the rest of the story from online resources such Pterosaur.net, or Dave Hone's Archosaur Musings, or John Conway's Palaeontography, or Pterosauria at the University of California Museum of Paleontology.

More about pterosaurs:

• Pterosaurs were 10 times heavier than biggest birds
• Flying reptile's big bill drags down feeding myth
• Pterodactyls in Japan hung out with birds
• How did flying reptiles rise?
• Search for pterosaurs on msnbc.com 

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

Roberto Beltramini / Space 3D

A 3-D view created from NASA imagery shows the space shuttle Endeavour docked to the International Space Station during that shuttle's last mission in May.

How can you possibly improve upon the ultimate pictures of the space shuttle and the International Space Station together in orbit? By turning them into 3-D photos, of course.

That's what Italian amateur astronomer Roberto Beltramini did with the imagery captured in May by his countryman, astronaut Paolo Nespoli. The "ultimate" opportunity presented itself when Nespoli and two other spacefliers were leaving the space station to come back home during the shuttle Endeavour's final orbital tour. Nespoli shot high-definition stills and video from the departing Soyuz spacecraft, and the fruits of his labors were made public last month.

Beltramini took pairs of slightly offset images and tweaked them to produce these stereo views, displayed on his Space 3D gallery and republished with permission.

Roberto Beltramini / Space 3D

In this view, you can make out Endeavour's robotic arm curling around the shuttle. Red-blue glasses are required for the 3-D effect.

Roberto Beltramini / Space 3D

A different perspective shows Endeavour's rear end, head-on.

These are perspectives we'll never see again — not even during Atlantis' program-ending visit to the space station this month. It was a scheduling fluke that a Soyuz craft happened to be leaving the station while Endeavour was docked, and the circumstance is virtually certain not to be repeated.

We just might see Atlantis and the station linked together from a different perspective, however. Photographers such as France's Thierry Legault are getting better and better at snapping amazing pictures of the station-shuttle complex from Earth, and during Atlantis' mission, you'll want to check Legault's website as well as Patrick Vantuyne's 3-D photo gallery.

Update for 9:40 p.m. ET: You'll need red-blue glasses to get the full 3-D effect from the pictures offered by Beltramini and Vantuyne. I'm in the process of sending out 3-D specs to at least a dozen (and probably more) members of the Cosmic Log Facebook community as part of our occasional "3-D Giveaway" program. To join the community, all you have to do is click the "Like" button on the Facebook page. The glasses are being provided courtesy of Microsoft Research. (Msnbc.com is a joint venture of Microsoft and NBC Universal.) If you're one of today's winners, congrats: I'll start sending out the glasses after Atlantis lifts off.

More 3-D views from space:

• Explore the 3-D depths of Mars
• Get a fresh 3-D look at Phobos
• See a Martian crater in 3-D
• See a Martian milestone in 3-D
• See the Martian arctic in 3-D
• See more depths of Mars in 3-D
• 3-D delights from Mars
• Still more from Mars in 3-D
• Go on a space mission in 3-D
• See the moon's marvels in 3-D
• Saturn's moons in 3-D
• More from outer space in 3-D
• Fly through a nebula in 3-D
• Cosmic Log's 3-D-O-Rama

Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page or following @b0yle on Twitter. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds. 

Two years ago, "Avatar" defined the state of the art in 3-D moviemaking, becoming history's top-grossing film and winning a visual-effects Oscar in the process — so how is the "Avatar" team going to top that for "Avatar 2," "Avatar 3" and beyond?

"I'm overhearing some things that are really exciting," actor Giovanni Ribisi, who played the corporate bad guy in the sci-fi blockbuster, told me last week during the opening of an "Avatar" exhibit at Seattle's EMP Museum.

For example, part of the action in one of the sequels will take place underwater, which poses big challenges for live-action filming as well as computer-generated graphics. Film director James Cameron, who pioneered the use of 3-D cameras for underwater documentaries, is reportedly having a high-tech submersible built for doing the sequels. And special-effects wizards are already working with Cameron to flesh out the underwater habitats of Pandora, the fictional alien moon where the action in "Avatar" takes place.

"He wants to see what's under the water, so we're going underwater," said Richie Baneham, animation supervisor for "Avatar."

Beyond that, the special-effects team has pretty much kept mum about what shape the sequels might take. But during a panel presentation held in conjuction with the Seattle exhibit opening, they made clear that they plan to keep pushing the wave of technological innovation that made "Avatar" possible.

Among those innovations is the Simul-cam camera viewer, which combines computer-generated graphics and live action in real time to show filmmakers more precisely what they'll see in the finished footage. (The technology is demonstrated in the video clip above.) Cameron also used a motion-capture technique that created detailed 3-D renderings of the actors while they were being filmed — a process that "Avatar" actor Laz Alonso said he appreciated greatly.

"As an actor, you usually have to save energy for the close-up," he told me. "With this technology, you can go 100 percent, all in, every single take, because you're being covered 360 degrees on every take."

Nolan Murtha, the digital-effects supervisor for the virtual production unit on "Avatar," predicted that 3-D movies eventually will be made using holographic technology — although it might take a while. "It'll probably be eight years before you'll see really credible results with holograms," he said.

"And I have no doubt Jim will be the first to make a movie with them," quipped Yuri Bartoli, supervising virtual art director for "Avatar."

In the shorter term, Cameron and the "Avatar" special-effects team are concentrating on ways to make the 3-D moviemaking process more like, well, regular old 2-D moviemaking. I asked Murtha about the technological path between "Avatar" and the age of holograms, and here's what he had to say:

Nolan Murtha: "With 3-D being an emerging technology right now, it's really starting to find its way into the consumer market and into the home. I think it will be our task for the next four or five years to develop that technology, and then to also evolve more interactive displays and more volumetric displays. The holographic stuff will be another revolution that I'm really looking forward to."

Q: Do you feel as if you have the tool set for that 3-D era, or do you think more tools have yet to be developed?

A: "We want to allow photographers and production designers to work with digital environments and digital tool sets, but using traditional filmmaking tools. So we want to re-create realistic lights, for example, and give filmmakers the same tools that they would have on a live-action set — in a virtual environment, in a virtual world.

"We're employing a lot of technology, but it's really to get back to a traditional filmmaking experience for the people who are doing the work. We're removing the computer nerd in the corner in the darkened lab, working on the content and then having the director look at it. Well, now the directors and the designers can start to do it themselves. They're directors. They want to do it themselves." 

Q: How far are you on that road? Are there things that really need to be developed yet in order to do what needs to be done for the sequels and for other projects?

A: "Yeah, we are always working, we're always looking at new technologies. I'm going to China to look at some brand-new stuff that they're doing over there. We want to employ whatever technology we can, and we want to be constantly evolving and making ourselves better.

"Three weeks after 'Avatar' came out and it was breaking all these records, we were actually sitting at a table with Jim and Richie and all, and we were talking about what we screwed up, what are we going to do differently, what did we do wrong. We pointed out all of our flaws even as the movie was breaking all these records. So we're constantly re-evaluating what we did, how we did it, and the mistakes that we made. That's important. To stay on the bleeding edge, you have to recognize that you are making mistakes and then adjust."

Q: Can you talk about what you're looking at in China?

A: "No, I can't."

Q: But does it have to do with this sort of filmmaking?

A: "Yeah, real-time graphic technology and some holographic stuff ... but I can't really talk too much about it yet."

Q: This is something we might see sooner rather than later?

A: "Oh, yeah. We hope so."

More about 'Avatar' and the future of film:

• 'Avatar' director targets spaceflight
• 'Avatar' gets top billing at Seattle museum
• The future of the movies is wearing 3-D glasses
• Virtual actor takes over in 'Tron: Legacy'

You can connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page or following @b0yle on Twitter. Also, give a look to "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.

Science / AAAS

Reconstruction of a red apple with a green leaf in three dimensions using surface plasmon holograms

A new technique to produce full-color holograms that stay the same when viewed from any angle could usher in a day when we plop down on the couch and watch 3-D TV without optical illusions.

Current methods for creating 3-D images are based on producing a separate image for the left and right eyes. "Inside the brain we reconstruct the 3-D, so it is sort of an illusion," optical physicist Satoshi Kawata of Osaka University of Japan explains in a video made available to reporters.

He and colleagues instead made 3-D color holograms that can be viewed with the naked eye and don't change color no matter what angle they are viewed from. They did this by harnessing so-called surface plasmons, which Kawata describes as "the collective electron oscillations traveling on a very thin metal film."

The researchers coat the metal film onto a light sensitive material called photoresist that contains a hologram made with red, green, and blue lasers. The photoresist hologram rests on a thin glass plate. A corrugated layer of silver is laid on top of the photoresist to help guide the holograph's light waves.

The surface plasmons in the metal film are excited using white light. The angle of the incoming light determines which plasmons are excited and diffracted by the hologram, reconstructing the light waves reaching the viewers eyes so that the 3-D image appears.

"No one has thought to use plasmons for display applications, so it was fun for me," Kawata told Wired Science. "I just wanted to demonstrate that this could be done. But I hope people would be interested in thinking seriously to use this technology for larger-scale 3-D display."

Before it goes big time, however, the technology needs to be scaled up — the current images are a few centimeters across. In addition, the images are static, not moving picture such as film or TV.

A paper describing the research appears in the April 8 issue of Science.

Update for 6:20 p.m. ET: Check out videos of a hologram demonstration and an interview with Kawata, available via EurekAlert.

Tip o' the Log to Lisa Grossman at Wired Science

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).

NASA / JPL-Caltech / UCLA

NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer captured this picture of the Rho Ophiuchi star-forming cloud.

The latest picture from NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer serves up a grab bag of colorful goodies, including a ruby-red reflection nebula, a twinkling of hot pink baby stars and some real old-timers in deep blue.

All those objects are visible in this view of Rho Ophiuchi (also known as Rho Oph or "Row Off"), a star-forming cloud complex that straddles the constellations Scorpio and Ophiuchus 407 light-years from Earth. It's a popular target for astronomers; in fact, another NASA infrared observatory, the Spitzer Space Telescope, focused on the same region three years ago.

The different colors represent different wavelengths in the infrared part of the spectrum. The shades of blue and blue-green stand for light emitted directly from stars (3.4 and 4.6 microns), while green and red are used for wavelengths that are mostly emitted by heated dust (12 and 22 microns). 

With that in mind, this is what we're looking at:

• Reflection nebula: The ruby-red splotch at lower right is a star known as Sigma Scorpii, whose light is being reflected by the surrounding dust.
• Emission nebula: The bright area in the center of the picture is an emission nebula, which gloes due to heating from nearby stars.
• Young stellar objects: The bright pink sparks just left of center are actually baby stars. Many of them are still enveloped in a "baby blanket" of dust. They can't be seen in visible light, but the dusty blanket heats up enough to render them detectable in the infrared.
• Star clusters: This picture includes two notable globular clusters of blue stars. One of them, M80, is on the far right image, toward the top. The other, NGC 6144, is toward the center, close to the bottom edge. In today's image advisory, the WISE team says these clusters are much more distant than the cloud, and contain some of the Milky Way's oldest stars.
• Way-out galaxy: The WISE team also says the photo includes a "galaxy far far away," known as PGC 090239. It's the reddish dot at the 3 o'clock position relative to bright emission nebula at the center, about two-thirds of the way from the center to the picture's right edge.
• Optical effects: What's a space picture without some sort of weird optical effect? Two relatively bright lines emerge from the picture's edge at bottom left. These are diffraction spikes caused by the bright star Antares, which is just out of the field of view.

There's more to come from WISE in the weeks and months ahead, even though the spacecraft went into hibernation in February. The $320 million mission's first public data release is scheduled to take place around the middle of this month. Some have speculated that WISE's data could provide evidence for the existence of a large object on the outskirts of the solar system dubbed "Tyche." But NASA says the data from the first release probably won't be enough to confirm (or rule out) Tyche's existence. In any case, WISE's team members are on the watch for what's likely to be asteroid discoveries galore.

Speaking of asteroids, NASA's Dawn mission is closing in on the asteroid Vesta for an encounter in August. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory is already planning for the "Vesta Fiesta," and delving into the question of whether it should be considered an asteroid or a protoplanet. (Why can't it be both? Vesta's big sister, Ceres, is a dwarf planet as well as an asteroid in my book. And when I say "my book," I mean that literally.)

NASA / JPL-Caltech / UCLA / PSI

This stereo view, released March 10, represents scientists' best guess for the shape of the protoplanet Vesta.

To whet the appetite for the Vesta Fiesta, NASA recently released a fresh video clip about the mission, plus this tasty 3-D picture of the protoplanet. Put on your red-blue glasses to see the stereoscopic effect. Don't have glasses? I'm sending more than two dozen sets of specs to folks who registered their request on the Cosmic Log Facebook page. (If you missed out this time, check back at the end of the month for the next giveaway.)

If you're looking for an even bigger smorgasbord, take a look at the cosmic buffet we've spread out in our latest installment of Month in Space Pictures. Click on these links for bigger versions of the pictures and further background:

• Window on the cosmos: Looking in on the space station.
• Before and after the tsunami: More views from DigitalGlobe.
• Cloud from the sun: Learn more about Alan Friedman's pictures.
• Super-moon attacks: NASA focuses on unusually big full moon.
• Cosmic pinwheel: Stunning galaxy sheds light on dark energy.
• Endeavour at the ready: Roberto Gonzalez's shuttle picture.
• Somalia seen from space: Space station's eerie view of desert. 
• Weird trails on Mars: As seen by Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.
• Alaska's bright lights: NASA physicist witnesses aurora.
• Viva la space station! Cuba spotted from orbit.
• Look! Up in the sky! Space station and Discovery over Central Park.
• That's no sunspot ... That's the station and shuttle in front of the sun.
• Winter in China: Cool picture from the space station.
• Mercury rising: Lots more pictures are coming from Messenger.
• Back on Earth: Dmitry Kostyukov's picture of Soyuz landing.
• Spider in space: Hubble Space Telescope focuses on Tarantula Nebula.
• Tribute to Gabby: Astronaut keeps his wounded sister-in-law in mind.
• Dancing with the stars: High-schoolers win with galaxy pairing.

Join the Cosmic Log community by clicking the "like" button on our Facebook page or by following msnbc.com science editor Alan Boyle as b0yle on Twitter. To learn more about my book on Pluto and the search for planets, check out the website for "The Case for Pluto." 

ESA / DLR / FU Berlin / G. Neukum

A stereo image shows an unnamed crater near Huygens Basin in Mars' southern hemisphere. Look at the image through red-blue glasses to get the 3-D effect.

Mars has some of the highest mountains and deepest valleys of the solar system — but you might not realize that unless you're looking at 3-D imagery of the Red Planet. So put on your red-blue glasses and check out some of the latest stereo imagery from interplanetary orbiters.

First up is today's picture of an elongated crater in the Martian southern hemisphere, as seen by the stereo camera aboard the  Mars Express orbiter. The picture was taken last August but has just been released by the European Space Agency. The crater has all the hallmarks of a cosmic impact, but instead of taking on the usual round shape, it's drawn out as if something struck a glancing blow on the surface.

That's pretty much what scientists think happened: A wider-angle view of the scene shows yet another stretched-out crater off to the north-northwest, directionally aligned with the main crater. That suggests that a train of orbital debris circled inward and hit the surface at a shallow angle. There's other evidence to support that hypothesis, including a butterfly-like splash pattern that spreads out on either side of the crater.

In today's image advisory, the European Space Agency says more of these elongated features will be formed in the future: "The Martian moon Phobos will plow into the planet in a few tens of millions of years, breaking up in the process, and likely creating new chains across the surface." That'll be something for future Mars colonists to watch for ... or watch out for.

NASA / JPL / Univ. of Arizona

A stereo image shows a volcanic vent and the vestiges of lava flows on Mars. Look at the image with red-blue glasses to get the 3-D effect.

Our second 3-D highlight comes from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, or MRO. This geological feature looks similar to the impact crater spotted by Mars Express, but it's the result of a completely different phenomenon. The University of Arizona's Alfred McEwen, principal investigator for MRO's High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment, says this is actually a volcanic vent, sitting on top of a Martian shield volcano.

Lava likely flowed out of this vent repeatedly, with "spatters" of molten rock creating an elevated rim around the vent. "Could these vents be the source of atmospheric methane that has recently been detected on Mars? No, they are old and dusty, like every volcanic vent imaged so far on Mars," McEwen writes in his image advisory.

Such vestiges of Mars' volcanic past could become the focus of future exploration. Astrobiologists speculate that collapsed lava tubes might have provided a haven for microbial communities on Mars, and pit caves on Mars (or on the moon, for that matter) may offer the safest locations for settlements.

NASA / JPL / Univ. of Ariz.

An image captured by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter shows light-toned layers in a crater south of Crommelin Crater. Red-blue glasses provide a 3-D effect.

The 3-D image above shows something completely different — the crazy, cratered terrain south of Crommelin Crater, around the Martian equator. The picture, showing the region's light-toned layers, was acquired by MRO last October.

There's lots more to see in 3-D — but if you're looking at these red-blue anaglyphs, you really need 3-D glasses to get the full effect. I believe every household should have a set of the stereo specs lying around. If you're missing out, here's how to remedy the situation: Inexpensive red-blue glasses are generally available at novelty stores, and you may also find them included with 3-D books or DVDs. NASA's website for the STEREO mission provides a list of mail-order outlets, as well as instructions for building your own 3-D glasses.

Here at Cosmic Log, we've distributed hundreds of 3-D glasses that are provided free of charge by Microsoft Research's WorldWide Telescope project. (Microsoft and NBC Universal are partners in the msnbc.com joint venture. WorldWide Telescope's developers have the glasses made up as a promotional item for their astronomy software, which includes 3-D imagery.)

Just today we've given out more than 30 pairs of glasses to folks who "like" the Cosmic Log page on Facebook. If you'd like to keep posted on future giveaways, please visit the page, hit the "like" button and become a full member of the Cosmic Log community.

For still more cool cosmic imagery, in 2-D, check out the latest installment of our Month in Space Pictures slideshow. This week we're featuring the shuttle Discovery's last mission as well as stunners from space telescopes and interplanetary probes. Click on the links below for larger versions of the pictures and additional background:

• Closing in: A perfect lineup for the shuttle and the space station.
• Swirls of ice: Shikotan Island as seen by EO-1 satellite.
• Cosmic reflections: Messier 78 nebula served up by MPG/ESO telescope.
• Pool practice: Bigger version of the AP picture from Star City.
• Continent in the sky: Spitzer's infrared view of the North America Nebula.
• Monster blast from the sun: You'll love this video from the Solar Dynamics Observatory.
• Saturn's northern storm: Planetary Society's Emily Lakdawalla explains Cassini imagery.
• Getting ready for a walk: See more images from Discovery's Flight Day 5.
• Welcomed with open arms: Station's robotic arm grabs Japanese cargo craft.
• Light show: A dazzlingly big picture of Norway's northern lights.
• Ready for landing: Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter sees crater in color.
• Walking on a mock Mars: Simulation crew practices for Red Planet mission.
• A ring of black holes: Chandra and Hubble team up on a galactic pair.
• A grand galaxy: Hubble's majestic view of the galaxy NGC 2841.
• Time to move out: Get a wider perspective on Discovery's preparations for flight. 
• Jumpin' Jupiter: NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory explains what smacked Jupiter.
• Remembering Challenger: Learn more about the 1986 Challenger tragedy and its legacy.
• A stunning sight: Italian astronaut Paolo Nespoli rocks the house with his Flickr pics.
• Eyes on the sky: Beautiful vista from the European Southern Observatory.

Still more cosmic views in 3-D:

• Get a fresh 3-D look at Phobos
• See a Martian crater in 3-D
• See a Martian milestone in 3-D
• See the Martian arctic in 3-D
• See more depths of Mars in 3-D
• 3-D delights from Mars
• Still more from Mars in 3-D
• Go on a space mission in 3-D
• See the moon's marvels in 3-D
• Saturn's moons in 3-D
• More from outer space in 3-D
• Fly through a nebula in 3-D
• Cosmic Log's 3-D-O-Rama

Join the Cosmic Log community by clicking the "like" button on our Facebook page or by following msnbc.com science editor Alan Boyle as b0yle on Twitter. To learn more about Alan Boyle's book on Pluto and the search for planets, check out the website for "The Case for Pluto." 

Watching a space shuttle launch from an airplane is a rare thrill, and having a video camera at the ready for the event is rarer still. So I was amazed to see last week's iPhone view of the shuttle Discovery's launch, captured by software developer Neil Monday from a commercial jet leaving Orlando. Turns out I shouldn't have been all that amazed: Canadian photographer JD Howell caught another view of last Thursday's launch with his own iPhone, from a different plane that happened to be passing through nearby airspace.

"I was returning to Toronto from a shoot in Cuba on an Air Canada flight, and awoke just as it was happening," Howell told me in an e-mail. "I started rolling my iPhone and caught two minutes of it before it exited the atmosphere. Talk about timing!"

The fact that this was Discovery's final launch made the experience all the more special for Howell. And as the mission continues, more photographers are turning their cameras skyward and praying for perfect timing.

Thierry Legault

The International Space Station looms above the shuttle Discovery in a series of images captured by French astrophotographer Thierry Legault. Click on the thumbnail to watch the video.

French astrophotographer Thierry Legault, who's become renowned for his pictures of the International Space Station and space shuttles silhouetted by the sun, snapped a sequence of images showing Discovery's approach to the station on Saturday. Click on the thumbnail at right to watch the whole thing.

"I had to travel as far as Weimar, Germany, to find a clear-enough sky to catch the ISS and Discovery 30 minutes before docking," Legault told SpaceWeather.com. "The station faces near the end of the video as the sun sets on the ISS."

If you want to double your pleasure, check out British photographer Rob Bullen's similarly framed picture of Discovery's approach, which is featured on NASA's website as well as on SpaceWeather.com. Bad Astronomy blogmeister Phil Plait says "it is seriously insane that we can do this." Or is that seriously awesome?

The insanity isn't over quite yet. On Thursday, NASA is due to release launch video captured by cameras mounted on the shuttle's solid-rocket boosters, and photographers will be clicking away again when Discovery undocks from the space station on March 6. Prepare to be wowed ... again.

More pictures with 'wow':

• Sun gets double-crossed
• Space missions in 3-D
• Shuttle in the spotlight
• Stare at the sun

Join the Cosmic Log community by clicking the "like" button on our Facebook page or by following msnbc.com science editor Alan Boyle as b0yle on Twitter. To learn more about Alan Boyle's book on Pluto and the search for planets, check out the website for "The Case for Pluto."