FORT DAVIS, Texas — David Doss is retiring from McDonald Observatory after half a century of making scientific research happen. As Assistant Manager for Observing Support, he has been there to make sure the telescopes and instruments are in tip-top shape and working as they should, so that astronomers can use them to study the universe.
Astronomers have disproved a 2018-announced planet orbiting Barnard’s Star, the second-closest star to our Sun. The findings are based on observations with the Habitable Zone Planet Finder instrument on the Hobby-Eberly Telescope.
FORT DAVIS, Texas — Astronomers are announcing today that they have disproved a 2018-announced planet orbiting Barnard’s Star, the second-closest star to our Sun. The findings, based on observations with the Habitable Zone Planet Finder (HPF) instrument on the 10-meter Hobby-Eberly Telescope at The University of Texas at Austin’s McDonald Observatory, have been accepted for publication in The Astronomical Journal.
Would you like to help astronomers understand more about the universe? McDonald Observatory astronomers are trying to learn more about dark energy — the mysterious force causing the universe to expand faster and faster over time. And now there is a fun and easy way anyone can help with their research, using a smartphone or computer.
Launched in February, Dark Energy Explorers uses the Zooniverse platform, the largest citizen science organization in the world. Users participate via the Zooniverse website or the Zooniverse smartphone app.
AUSTIN — The Hubble Space Telescope has allowed astronomers from The University of Texas at Austin to get a rare look at a young, Jupiter-sized planet that is growing by feeding off material surrounding a young star 370 light-years from Earth.
“We just don’t know very much about how giant planets grow,” said Brendan Bowler, an assistant professor of astronomy at UT Austin. “This planetary system gives us the first opportunity to witness material falling onto a planet. Our results open up a new area for this research.”
Together, the WDEEP and COSMOS-Webb large JWST first-year programs will probe reionization, the period where galaxies burnt off the cosmic haze of residual gas leftover from the Big Bang.
AUSTIN — Astronomers at The University of Texas at Austin are set to lead some of the largest programs in the first year of NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), including the largest project overall. Set to launch this Halloween, the telescope will become operational by mid-2022. Altogether, UT astronomers received about 500 hours of telescope time in JWST’s first year.
The 8.4-meter mirror joins five of the world’s largest mirrors previously cast for the Giant Magellan Telescope, one of the world’s largest and most anticipated extremely large telescopes.
The American Astronomical Society (AAS), the major organization of professional astronomers in North America, has honored Dr. Anita Cochran, Assistant Director of McDonald Observatory and Senior Research Scientist, for extraordinary achievement and service by naming her an AAS Fellow for 2021.
Cochran was honored for her research addressing the molecular composition and structure of comets and her decades of service to the astronomical community.
FORT DAVIS, Texas — 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.
