Posts by McDonald Observatory
May 4, 2020
McDonald Observatory Remains Closed to the Public
Last week Texas Governor Greg Abbott announced the first steps to re-open the state safely and strategically to limit the spread of COVID-19. While some businesses and other concerns are re-opening, The University of Texas at Austin announced that it will continue to […]
April 15, 2020
Texas-Led Team Finds Earth-Sized, Habitable Zone Planet Hidden in Early NASA Kepler Data
A team of transatlantic scientists led by The University of Texas at Austin’s Andrew Vanderburg has used reanalyzed data from NASA’s Kepler space telescope to discover an Earth-size exoplanet orbiting in its star’s habitable zone, the area around a star […]
April 13, 2020
Continued Closure of McDonald Observatory
McDonald Observatory is announcing today that it will remain closed to the public beyond the previously announced date, April 19, based on Texas Governor Greg Abbott’s March 31 executive order extending school closures and other mitigation measures into May due […]
March 13, 2020
McDonald Observatory to Close to Visitors
The University of Texas at Austin’s McDonald Observatory is announcing that its Frank N. Bash Visitors Center will close operations today at 5 p.m. and remain closed through at least April 19. All public programs are cancelled through at least […]
March 12, 2020
McDonald Observatory Hires Teznie Pugh as New Superintendent
The University of Texas at Austin’s McDonald Observatory has hired Teznie Pugh as its new Superintendent, responsible for managing day-to-day operations at the West Texas site. Pugh comes to McDonald from Lowell Observatory in Arizona, where she has been on […]
February 21, 2020
Planet Finder Validates Its First Habitable-Zone Exoplanet, a Mini Neptune
Astronomers have validated their first exoplanet with the Habitable Zone Planet Finder instrument on the Hobby-Eberly Telescope, one of the world’s largest telescopes, located at The University of Texas at Austin’s McDonald Observatory. About twice the size of Earth and […]
February 10, 2020
Distant Giant Planets Form Differently than ‘Failed Stars’
A team of astronomers led by Brendan Bowler of The University of Texas at Austin has probed the formation process of giant exoplanets and brown dwarfs, a class of objects that are more massive than giant planets, but not massive […]
February 7, 2020
Caroline Morley Receives Annie Jump Cannon Award
The American Astronomical Society (AAS) has awarded Caroline Morley, assistant professor of astronomy at The University of Texas at Austin, its 2020 Annie Jump Cannon Award in Astronomy for outstanding research and promise for future research by a postdoctoral woman […]
January 7, 2020
Texas Astronomer Helps NASA Planet Hunter Find its First Earth-Sized, Habitable-Zone World
NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) has discovered its first Earth-size planet in its star’s habitable zone, the range of distances where conditions may be just right to allow the presence of liquid water on the surface. A team of […]
December 20, 2019
Twin Astronomer Probes ‘DNA’ of Twin Stars to Reveal Family History of the Milky Way
Twin stars appear to share chemical “DNA” that could help scientists map the history of the Milky Way galaxy, according to new research by astronomer Keith Hawkins of The University of Texas at Austin accepted for publication in The Monthly Notices […]
December 11, 2019
UT Austin Astronomer Spies Most Distant Dusty Galaxy Hidden in Plain Sight
Astronomer Caitlin Casey of The University of Texas at Austin has used the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) to spot the light of a massive galaxy seen just 970 million years after the Big Bang. This galaxy, called MAMBO-9, is the most distant […]
October 31, 2019
New Telescope Dedicated at McDonald Observatory
A new telescope was dedicated yesterday at The University of Texas at Austin’s McDonald Observatory. The 1-meter telescope, funded by the Heising-Simons Foundation, is part of the Las Cumbres Observatory (LCO) global network of robotic telescopes. “We are very pleased to […]
October 30, 2019
Giant Magellan Telescope Signs Contract for Telescope Structure
GMTO Corporation, the organization managing the development of the Giant Magellan Telescope (GMT) on behalf of its U.S. and international founders, has signed a contract with MT Mechatronics and Ingersoll Machine Tools to design, build and install the telescope’s precision steel […]
August 27, 2019
Newly Discovered Giant Planet Slingshots Around its Star
Astronomers at The University of Texas at Austin’s McDonald Observatory, along with colleagues at Caltech and elsewhere, have discovered a planet three times the mass of Jupiter that travels on a long, egg-shaped path around its star. If this planet […]