News: Astronomy
Read the latest news from the College of Natural Sciences at The University of Texas at Austin
McDonald Observatory
A Cosmic Puzzle: Phosphine Found in One Brown Dwarf, Missing in Others
The explosive compound forms naturally in the atmospheres of Jupiter and Saturn, but on Earth it is also a byproduct of anaerobic life.

McDonald Observatory
Local Properties Keep Stars Bright with Night Sky-Friendly Lighting
Village Fresh Greenhouse Grown, the Brewster County Courthouse and Terlingua Ranch Lodge are the latest to adopt lighting that benefits astronomers and skywatchers.

McDonald Observatory
UT Austin Welcomes MIT to Giant Magellan Telescope International Consortium
The private research university becomes the 16th member of the international consortium advancing the GMT.

McDonald Observatory
Astronomers Investigate Complex Heart of a Cosmic Butterfly
The James Webb Space Telescope offers a new view of a planetary nebula located about 3,400 light-years away in the constellation Scorpius.

McDonald Observatory
The Universe’s Secret Harvest: UT Astronomers Shed Light on “the Cosmic Grapes”
The galaxy contains far more star-forming clumps than current theoretical models can explain.

McDonald Observatory
Some Young Suns Align with Their Planet-forming Disks, Others Are Born Tilted
Lauren Biddle, a UT postdoc, finds about one-third of young Sun-like stars are born with misaligned protoplanetary disks.

UT News
Meet the Universe’s Earliest Confirmed Black Hole: A Monster at the Dawn of Time
A team of astronomers from UT’s Cosmic Frontier Center have identified the most distant black hole ever confirmed.

McDonald Observatory
Stowaway Bat Returns Home Friday, July 25
A Big Freetail bat nicknamed Hubble apparently hitched a ride from McDonald Observatory to Austin in astronomy gear.

McDonald Observatory
Giant Magellan Telescope Advances to National Science Foundation Final Design Phase
UT Austin is on track for huge leaps forward in astronomy research capabilities as GMT progresses.

McDonald Observatory
COSMOS-Web Releases Deepest Yet View Into the Universe
Over 250 hours of observations from the world’s most powerful telescope, the James Webb Space Telescope, are freely available to the public.
