Posts by McDonald Observatory
June 30, 2026
Nearby “Super Earth” May Be a Better Candidate for Life Than Previously Thought
Using the Hobby-Eberly Telescope at McDonald Observatory, astronomers have taken a closer look at a nearby exoplanet and discovered it may be more Earth-like than previously thought. The planet, known as GJ 3378b, orbits a small, cool star called a […]
June 10, 2026
UT Astronomers Find Strongest Evidence Yet for ‘Black Hole Stars’
The complex puzzle known as little red dots has become more complete since their initial discovery by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope in 2022. Now a particular little red dot’s spectrum is helping connect many of the pieces. A team […]
June 3, 2026
HETDEX Opens Massive Cosmic Dataset to Scientists, Novices, and AI
Today, the Hobby-Eberly Telescope Dark Energy Experiment (HETDEX) – which recently completed the largest survey ever taken of the early universe – has released all of its immense, information-rich database to the public. Built from more than half a petabyte of raw […]
May 4, 2026
IGRINS Confirms Link Between the Composition of Exoplanets and Their Stars
Almost 320 light-years away in the Libra constellation lies WASP-189b, an exoplanet known as an ultra-hot Jupiter. Such planets have temperatures high enough to vaporize rock-forming elements like magnesium, silicon, and iron, offering a rare opportunity to see these elements using spectroscopy […]
April 17, 2026
Little Red Dots: New Clues from the Early Universe
The launch of NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) in 2021 pushed the horizon of seeing the early universe, unveiling cosmic events just a few hundred million years after the Big Bang. Among the most striking discoveries are supermassive black […]
April 5, 2026
Astronomers Thought the Early Universe Was Full of Hydrogen. Now They’ve Found It.
Astronomers using data from the Hobby–Eberly Telescope Dark Energy Experiment (HETDEX) have discovered tens of thousands of gigantic hydrogen gas halos, called “Lyman-alpha nebulae,” surrounding galaxies 10 billion to 12 billion years ago. Known as Cosmic Noon, this is an epoch in […]
March 30, 2026
2026 Board of Visitors Winter Meeting Shares Cutting-Edge Science
The Department of Astronomy and McDonald Observatory welcomed the Board of Visitors to The University of Texas at Austin campus on March 6-7 for its annual winter meeting. Over the course of two days, 130 BOV members joined science leaders, […]
March 6, 2026
A Night at the Telescope
The University of Texas at Austin offers unmatched opportunities for undergraduates to conduct research firsthand — for some, as soon as their freshman year. Situated within the College of Natural Sciences, the Harlan J. Smith Scholars program invites astronomy students […]
March 3, 2026
A Sea of Light: HETDEX Astronomers Reveal Hidden Structures in the Young Universe
Astronomers with the Hobby-Eberly Telescope Dark Energy Experiment (HETDEX), have used data from the project to make the largest, most accurate 3D map yet of the light emitted by excited hydrogen in the early universe, 9 billion to 11 billion years ago. […]
January 13, 2026
UT Astronomer Appointed President of Organization Building World’s Most Powerful Telescope
GMTO Corporation — the international consortium building the world’s most powerful telescope, the Giant Magellan — today announced it has appointed The University of Texas at Austin’s Daniel T. Jaffe as president. He is one of two UT astronomers recently named to […]
November 17, 2025
Unique Shape of Star’s Explosion Revealed Just a Day After Detection
Rapid observations with the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope (ESO’s VLT) have revealed the explosive death of a star just as the blast was breaking through the star’s surface. For the first time, astronomers unveiled the shape of the […]
November 4, 2025
Taft Armandroff Elected to Chair Giant Magellan Telescope Board of Directors
The GMTO Corporation, the 501(c)(3) nonprofit and international consortium building the Giant Magellan Telescope, today announced a leadership transition on its Board of Directors. After nearly a decade of leadership as chair, Walter Massey is retiring. The board has elected McDonald Observatory […]
October 27, 2025
Tiny Galaxy, Big Find: Black Hole Discovered in Nearby Segue 1
Small and unassuming, Segue 1 is a nearby dwarf galaxy containing only a handful of stars – too few to provide the gravity needed to keep itself from scattering into space. Like other dwarf galaxies, it was long believed that […]
October 16, 2025
Born Together: A New Look at Binary Stars
Peering into the universe’s dark, hazy cosmos to catch the first glimpses of infant stars has long challenged astronomers. The cloud of dense gas and dust that gives rise to these stellar embryos also conceals them. However, a recent study […]
October 2, 2025
A Cosmic Puzzle: Phosphine Found in One Brown Dwarf, Missing in Others
Today, a team of researchers, including those at McDonald Observatory, has announced the first significant detection of phosphine in the atmosphere of a cool brown dwarf named Wolf 1130C. With the discovery, astronomers are a step closer to understanding the […]