News

This week is World Space Week, an international celebration of science and technology offering space education and outreach from educational institutions across the globe. Here are some upcoming events to help you celebrate:

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 were somehow placed into our own solar system, it would swing from within our asteroid belt to out beyond Neptune. Other giant planets with highly elliptical orbits have been found around other stars, but none of those worlds were located at the very outer reaches of their star systems like this one.

StarDate Radio is announcing today that Billy Henry is the program's new voice. Henry, an Austin-based voice talent, musician, composer, and college lecturer, becomes the third narrator of the program in its 41-year history. He assumes the title from Sandy Wood, who retired from the program yesterday. Henry's first program airs today.

Sandy Wood, the popular and charismatic announcer of the StarDate radio program, is retiring after 28 years on the air. Her final episode will air July 16.

David Booth, co-founder and executive chairman of Austin-based Dimensional Fund Advisors and a visionary philanthropist, has committed a $10 million gift to The University of Texas at Austin. His philanthropic investment will be used to advance Texas Science and the construction of the Giant Magellan Telescope (GMT). Once completed, the GMT will be the world's largest telescope and have the capability to provide unprecedented views of the universe.

AUSTIN, Texas — The University of Texas at Austin's McDonald Observatory is celebrating its 80th anniversary, and it started today with an event at the Capitol. Senate Concurrent Resolution No. 60, authored by Texas state Sen. José Rodríguez to honor the anniversary, passed this morning on the Senate floor. Texas state Rep. Poncho Nevárez will sponsor the resolution in the House. Located near the West Texas town of Fort Davis, McDonald Observatory falls into the districts of both lawmakers.

Astronomers at The University of Texas at Austin, in partnership with Google, have used artificial intelligence (AI) to uncover two more hidden planets in the Kepler space telescope archive. The technique shows promise for identifying many additional planets that traditional methods could not catch.

The Texas Academy of Science has chosen David Lambert, the Isabel McCutcheon Harte Centennial Chair in Astronomy, as the 2019 Distinguished Texas Scientist in honor of his notable career and significant contributions to science.

A new astronomical spectrograph provides the highest precision measurements to date of infrared signals from nearby stars, allowing astronomers to detect planets capable of having liquid water on their surfaces that orbit cool stars outside our solar system. The Habitable Zone Planet Finder (HPF) allows precise measurement of a star's radial velocity, measured by the subtle change in the color of the star's spectra as it is tugged by an orbiting planet, which is critical information in the discovery and confirmation of new planets.

Caitlin Casey, UT Austin astronomy assistant professor, has been named a 2019 Cottrell Scholar by the Research Corporation for Science Advancement (RCSA).

Meet Eric Berger (B.S. Astronomy, '95), Senior Space Editor at Ars Technica and Editor at Space City Weather.

The first direct evidence of crystallized white dwarf stars has been discovered by an international team of researchers that includes an astronomer at The University of Texas at Austin. Predicted half a century ago, the direct evidence of these stars will be published tomorrow in the journal Nature.

The American Astronomical Society (AAS) announced today at its semi-annual meeting in Seattle that J. Craig Wheeler and David Branch will share its Chambliss Astronomical Writing Award for 2019. Wheeler is the Samuel T. and Fern Yanagisawa Regents Professor of Astronomy at The University of Texas at Austin.

In findings published today in The Astrophysical Journal, University of Texas at Austin astronomers report that they have stumbled on an extraordinary galaxy that may corroborate a recently contested theory about dark matter.

The longest running nationally aired science program is marking a major milestone. "StarDate" radio, produced by The University of Texas at Austin's McDonald Observatory, celebrates 40 years on the nation's airwaves. In its nearly 15,000 daily two-minute episodes, "StarDate" has brought skywatching and astronomy to millions of listeners across the United States. Today, it airs on about 400 radio affiliates, split evenly between public and commercial stations.