A Stellar Rosetta Stone  The work of various scientists have contributed considerable knowledge about how many old stars are orbited by giant planets. Intrigued by this data, Lowell Observatory astronomer Lisa Prato and her collaborators, Naved Mahmud and Christopher Crockett at Lowell, and Christopher Johns-Krull at Rice University, are researching a similar topic — companions orbiting young stars. More »
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Harvesting Apples
From Nearby Galaxies "The star formation rate is a basic quantity that you need to understand if you want to come out with a clean picture of how galaxies form and evolve," says Guillermo Blanc, astronomy graduate student at The University of Texas at Austin. And that's exactly what he is trying to find. More »
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Monitoring a New Type of Star In 2008, University of Texas at Austin astronomers Mike Montgomery and Kurtis Williams, along with graduate student Steven DeGennaro, 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. Now more of these have been discovered, and Kurtis is using the Struve Telescope to monitor them. More »
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NASA Astronomer of the Week: Bill Cochran University of Texas at Austin astronomers William Cochran and Michael Endl, with graduate student Robert Wittenmyer and recent PhD graduate Jacob Bean, have used the 9.2-meter Hobby-Eberly Telescope at McDonald Observatory to discover a system of two Jupiter-like planets orbiting a star whose composition might seem to rule out planet formation. This NASA-funded study has implications for theories of planet formation. More »
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Special Viewing Night Have you ever dreamed of looking at faraway objects with a large telescope? This week visitors will gather at McDonald Observatory to explore the treasures of the Milky Way. More »
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The Odd Ones Peter Frinchaboy, an astronomer at Texas Christian University, is studying stars in open clusters. Specifically, he’ll be looking for stars that deviate from the norm within these clusters — things like binary stars. More »
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 This program is supported by the National Science Foundation under grant AST 0227870. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.
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