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Sixth Mirror Cast for Giant Magellan Telescope

The University of Texas at Austin and other GMT partners the fabrication of the sixth of seven of the world’s largest monolithic mirrors. These mirrors will allow astronomers to see farther into the universe with more detail than any other optical telescope before.

A Science Festival as Big as Texas

Free, online, and open to science enthusiasts everywhere. Check out highlights from McDonald Observatory and the Department of Astronomy during this celebration of discovery and learning.

M101

HETDEX Project On Track to Probe Dark Energy

Three years into its quest to reveal the nature of dark energy, the Hobby-Eberly Telescope Dark Energy Experiment (HETDEX) is on track to complete the largest map of the cosmos ever. The team will create a three-dimensional map of 2.5 million galaxies that will help astronomers understand how and why the expansion of the universe is speeding up over time.

Planet Hugging a Dead Star May Have Survived its Death Throes

A team of astronomers led by our Andrew Vanderburg has used the TESS and Spitzer space telescopes to discover what may be the first intact planet found closely orbiting a white dwarf, the dense leftover of a sun-like star. The work included follow-up observations with our Hobby-Eberly Telescope.

GMT site

Major NSF Grant Accelerates Development for the GMT

The Giant Magellan Telescope project has received a $17.5M grant from the National Science Foundation to accelerate the prototyping and testing of some of the most powerful optical and infrared technologies ever engineered. UT Austin is a founding partner of the GMT.