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 — the technique of breaking up light into its component wavelengths to identify the presence of chemicals.

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 holes—some reaching 100 million times the mass of our Sun.

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 the early universe when galaxies were growing their fastest. To spur this growth, they would have needed access to vast reservoirs of hydrogen gas, a key building block for stars.

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, faculty, and students for an exploration of the cutting-edge science currently underway at UT Austin and the new windows it is opening to our 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. This specific form of light, called Lyman alpha, is emitted in large quantities when hydrogen atoms are exposed to a star’s energy. That makes it a great tool for finding bright galaxies in this far-off time, which experienced a rash of star creation.

By Emily Howard

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 explosion at its earliest, fleeting stage. This brief initial phase wouldn’t have been observable a day later and helps address a whole set of questions about how massive stars go supernova.

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 Director Taft Armandroff as its new chair and Nobel Laureate Brian Schmidt as vice chair.

By Emily Howard

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 gravity from a mysterious substance called dark matter was the main binding force.