An international team of astronomers including Stella Offner of The University of Texas at Austin has proposed a new method for the formation of aluminum-26 in star systems that are forming planets. Because its radioactive decay is thought to provide a heat source for the building blocks of planets, called planetesimals, it’s important for astronomers to know where aluminum-26 comes from. Their research is published in the current issue of The Astrophysical Journal.

McDonald Observatory operated the only large optical telescope in the world that stayed online through the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, keeping watch under the skies.

Text courtesy NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

Jupiter-size planets orbiting close to their stars have upended ideas about how giant planets form. Finding young members of this planet class could help answer key questions. For most of human history our understanding of how planets form and evolve was based on the eight (or nine) planets in our solar system. But over the last 25 years, the discovery of more than 4,000 exoplanets, or planets outside our solar system, changed all that.

AUSTIN — Fritz Benedict has used data he took over two decades ago with Hubble Space Telescope to confirm the existence of another planet around the Sun’s nearest neighbor, Proxima Centauri, and to pin down the planet’s orbit and mass. Benedict, an emeritus Senior Research Scientist with McDonald Observatory at The University of Texas at Austin, will present his findings today in a scientific session and then in a press conference at a meeting of the American Astronomical Society.

Scientists from across The University of Texas at Austin are joining forces in the hunt for life on other planets.

Astronomers, geoscientists, chemists, biologists and aerospace engineers have pooled resources to form the UT Center for Planetary Systems Habitability, a cross-campus, interdisciplinary research unit.

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 where a rocky planet could support liquid water.

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 to the continuing public health crisis posed by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Dear Friends of McDonald Observatory,

I’d like to share a McDonald Observatory status update with you.

This is an extraordinary time for our nation and our planet. Our primary concern is the health and safety of our staff, our astronomy community, and our friends and supporters.

McDonald Observatory continues to operate at this difficult time, but at a somewhat reduced capability. Our team members are adapting to the very changed circumstances and are practicing social distancing and other important precautions.

FORT DAVIS, Texas — 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 April 19.

Officials from the university have taken this decision to implement the recommendations for social distancing to slow the spread of the coronavirus, the agent causing the COVID-19 pandemic.

FORT DAVIS, Texas — 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 staff for six years, most recently as Operations Manager. She began her tenure at McDonald Observatory on February 10.