News release courtesy UC Berkeley

Comets trailing wispy tails across the night sky are a beautiful byproduct of our solar system’s formation, icy leftovers from 4.6 billion years ago when the planets coalesced from rocky rubble.

The discovery by astronomers at the University of California, Berkeley, and Clarion University in Pennsylvania of six likely comets around distant stars suggests that comets — dubbed “exocomets” — are just as common in other stellar systems with planets. 

AUSTIN, Texas — Seven faculty members at The University of Texas at Austin, including Dr. Neal Evans II of the Astronomy Department, have been elected fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). Fellows are chosen annually by their peers to recognize their scientifically or socially distinguished efforts to advance science or its applications.

Fort Davis, Texas — Astronomers have used the Hobby-Eberly Telescope at The University of Texas at Austin's McDonald Observatory to measure the mass of what may be the most massive black hole yet — 17 billion Suns — in galaxy NGC 1277. The unusual black hole makes up 14 percent of its galaxy's mass, rather than the usual 0.1 percent. This galaxy and several more in the same study could change theories of how black holes and galaxies form and evolve. The work will appear in the journal Nature on Nov. 29.

AUSTIN, Texas — J. Craig Wheeler has studied the exploding stars called supernovae for more than four decades. Now he has a new idea on the identity of the "parents" of one of the most important types of supernovae — the Type Ia, those used as "standard candles" in cosmology studies that led to the discovery of dark energy, the mysterious force causing the universe's expansion to speed up. 

The first mirror for the Giant Magellan Telescope (GMT), a major next-generation telescope in which The University of Texas at Austin is a founding partner, is now completed. 

Becoming operational in the next decade under dark southern-hemisphere skies, GMT will lead a new generation of giant telescopes that will explore planets around other stars and the formation of stars, galaxies and black holes in the early universe. 

As it does each year, early fall brings crisper air, turning leaves, and the Orionid meteor shower. This year’s best viewing will be in the several hours around midnight Oct. 20 and before dawn on Oct. 21, according to the editors of StarDate magazine.

At its late-night peak, this year’s shower is expected to produce about 25 meteors per hour. The first-quarter moon will set around midnight, so its light will not interfere with the celestial show.

AUSTIN — Dust is an annoyance in everyday life, but an important building block of stars and planets. As such, astronomers need to understand how cosmic dust forms over time — it's an integral step in figuring out the evolution of galaxies, and the stars and planets within them.

FORT DAVIS, Texas — A group of astronomers led by Gregg Wade of the Royal Military College of Canada have used the Hobby-Eberly Telescope (HET) at The University of Texas at Austin's McDonald Observatory and the Canada-France Hawaii Telescope (CFHT) on Hawaii's Mauna Kea to measure the most magnetic massive star yet. Their work is published in today's issue of the research journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. 

FORT DAVIS, Texas — NASA's Kepler mission has found the first multi-planet solar system orbiting a binary star, characterized in large part by University of Texas at Austin astronomers using two telescopes at the university's McDonald Observatory in West Texas. The finding, which proves that whole planetary systems can form in a disk around a binary star, is published in today's issue of the journal Science.

AUSTIN, Texas — A team of astronomers led by researchers from The University of Texas at Austin has confirmed the emission of gravitational waves from the second-strongest known source in our galaxy by studying the shrinking orbital period of a unique pair of burnt-out stars. Their observations tested Albert Einstein's theory of general relativity in a new regime. The results will be published soon in The Astrophysical Journal Letters.