[Thursday, May 1, 2008] Aastronomers have predicted and confirmed the existence of a new type of variable star with the help of the 2.1-meter Otto Struve Telescope at McDonald Observatory.

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[Thursday, May 1, 2008] NASA-funded researchers have released a new "4D" live model of Earth's ionosphere. Without leaving home, anyone can fly through the dynamic layer of ionized gases that encircles Earth at the edge of space itself.

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[Thursday, May 1, 2008] Using observations from NASA's Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer (RXTE), an international team of astronomers has discovered a timing mechanism that allows them to predict exactly when a superdense star will unleash incredibly powerful explosions.

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[Thursday, May 1, 2008] As far as endings go, this one's a real heart breaker. NASA's Polar satellite concludes its successful mission at the end of April with a breathtaking visible-light image of the colorful dancing lights of the aurora.

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[Thursday, May 1, 2008] NASA invites people of all ages to join the lunar exploration journey with an opportunity to send their names to the moon aboard the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, or LRO, spacecraft.

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[Thursday, May 1, 2008] As you read these words, the New Horizons spacecraft remains in a long period of almost continuous hibernation, which began on Feb. 21 and stretches until Sept. 2.

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[Saturday, May 3, 2008] After safely reaching its launch pad Discovery now awaits its next major milestone for the upcoming STS-124 mission. A launch dress rehearsal, known as the terminal countdown demonstration test, is scheduled to take place at Kennedy from May 6 to 9.

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[Monday, May 5, 2008] Robert Fisher and Cal Jordan are among a team of scientists who will expend 22 million computational hours during the next year on one of the world's most powerful supercomputers, simulating an event that takes less than five seconds.

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[Monday, May 5, 2008] The Applied Physics Laboratory is sending a spacecraft closer to the sun than any probe has ever gone - and what it finds could revolutionize what we know about our star and the solar wind that influences everything in our solar system.

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[Monday, May 5, 2008] A new model of inner Earth constructed by Arizona State University researchers pulls past information and hypotheses into a coherent story to clarify mantle motion.

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[Monday, May 5, 2008] What are the principal purposes, goals, and priorities of the U.S. civil space program? This question was the focus of the workshop on civil space policy held November 29-30, 2007.

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[Monday, May 5, 2008] "When I was a new NASA employee, my branch chief put together a training class that has been on my mind recently. Among the other things he taught us new employees was that we had to lead our leaders. That has always been good advice."

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[Monday, May 5, 2008] The statement that is in my diary goes "SEI by 1994 or will not happen until after 2004". The person that made this statement was the head of NASA Code X (X for exploration), and his name was Dr. Mike Griffin.

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[Monday, May 5, 2008] How cool would it be to have your name on board the spacecraft that discovers the first known Earth-like planet beyond our solar system? Well, here's your chance.

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[Monday, May 5, 2008] The Northrop Grumman Foundation is accepting teacher applications for the 2008 Weightless Flights of Discovery program, an initiative that places teachers on micro- and zero-gravity flights to energize students in the formative middle-school years.

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[Tuesday, May 6, 2008] The first cyclone of the 2008 season in the northern Indian Ocean was a devastating one for Myanmar (Burma). News reports stated that at least 10,000 people were killed, and thousands more were missing as of May 5.

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[Tuesday, May 6, 2008] The Astrobiology-based game by Electronic Arts is described as "an epic journey that takes you from the origin and evolution of life through the development of civilization and technology, eventually all the way into the deepest reaches of outer space."

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[Tuesday, May 6, 2008] Challenger Center for Space Science Education invites students to use their creativity to design an original piece of art for a student mission patch for private space explorer, Richard Garriott.

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[Tuesday, May 6, 2008] The STS-124 crew members arrived at Kennedy Space Center this afternoon for the terminal countdown demonstration test. Flying in T-38 training jets, the astronauts touched down on the Shuttle Landing Facility on a warm, clear Central Florida afternoon.

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[Wednesday, May 7, 2008] Three days after its surprise eruption on May 2, the Chaiten volcano of southern Chile was still pumping out dense clouds of ash. The plume stretches east from the peak in this pair of images, taken on May 5, 2008

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[Wednesday, May 7, 2008] Following the success of the Dragon Program, 300 leading European and Chinese scientists have gathered from 21 to 25 April 2008 in Beijing in the People's Republic of China to present their results and to kick off the program's second phase,.

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[Wednesday, May 7, 2008] Administrator Michael Griffin announced Wednesday that Ed Weiler will remain as NASA's associate administrator for the agency's Science Mission Directorate. Weiler was named interim chief of the directorate March 26.

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[Wednesday, May 7, 2008] Our mental framework has evolved, in ways not all together positive from the perspective of those of us who believe that the economic development of space is practical and indeed crucial to the continuing development of our planetary civilization.

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[Wednesday, May 7, 2008] Two decades of scrutinizing Saturn are finally paying off, as scientists have discovered a wave pattern, or oscillation, in Saturn's atmosphere only visible from Earth every 15 years.

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[Wednesday, May 7, 2008] Imagine yourself hip-to-hip, shoulder-to-shoulder, inside a room the size of a walk-in closet for eight hours with five people you just met. Does that make you sweat? Or maybe make your breathing a little more animated?

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[Wednesday, May 7, 2008] Students from coast to coast will have the opportunity to make an out of this world call to the International Space Station on Monday, May 12, from 11:20 a.m. to 11:40 a.m. CDT.

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[Thursday, May 8, 2008] NASA engineers Thursday successfully completed the first series of tests in the early development of the J-2X engine that will power the upper stages of the Ares I and Ares V rockets, key components of NASA's Constellation Program.

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[Thursday, May 8, 2008] NASA will host a media teleconference on Thursday, May 15, at 2 p.m. EDT, to provide an overview of progress made in the last few months and work ahead for NASA's Constellation Program.

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[Thursday, May 8, 2008] In April, Richard Garriott, the next civilian to visit the International Space Station, joined Founding Chairman of Challenger Center for Space Science Education, Dr. June Scobee Rogers, for the first in a series of monthly audio blog podcasts.

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[Friday, May 9, 2008] The Honourable Jim Prentice, Minister of Industry, today wrote to Alliant Techsystems Inc. to confirm that he is not satisfied that its application to acquire control of the Information Systems Business of MDA is likely to be of net benefit to Canada.

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[Friday, May 9, 2008] New research on the Antennae Galaxies using the Hubble Space Telescope shows that this benchmark pair of interacting galaxies is in fact much closer than previously thought - 45 million light-years instead of 65 million light-years.

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[Friday, May 9, 2008] Scientists have visited one of the most inhospitable environments on the planet to carry out a challenging field campaign that is seen as the key to ensuring the data delivered by ESA's ice mission CryoSat will be as accurate as possible.

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[Friday, May 9, 2008] Though Yangon (Rangoon) escaped the total destruction that Cyclone Nargis brought to much of the rest of the Irrawaddy Delta in Burma (Myanmar), its southern suburbs were completely submerged on May 7, 2008.

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[Friday, May 9, 2008] This week at the Operations Management Council (OMC) meeting, a significant portion was dedicated to the work we are doing to improve information technology (IT)

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[Friday, May 9, 2008] Explorers Club President Daniel A. Bennett will be featured on ABC's Good Morning America on Monday, May 12. President Bennett was interviewed at Explorers Club headquarters in New York as part of a piece that examined the Seven Wonders of America.

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[Saturday, May 10, 2008] On April 20, 2008, the orbiter's Mars Color Imager camera captured this view of a large region of northern Mars that includes the landing target area in the lower right quadrant.

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[Saturday, May 10, 2008] NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander continues on course for its May 25 arrival at Mars.

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[Sunday, May 11, 2008] When astronaut Scott Parazynski stands atop Mt. Everest in a few days, he will be making note of a number of non-profit and educational organizations - among them the Explorers Club. With him will be a small Explorers Club flag.

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