News: Astronomy

Read the latest news from the College of Natural Sciences at The University of Texas at Austin

UT News

World’s Largest International Dark Sky Reserve Created by McDonald Observatory, Community Partners

The world’s largest International Dark Sky Reserve is coming to Texas and Mexico,.

The Milky Way in the night sky is evident over a dark peak, Mt. Locke

Accolades

Astronomer Stella Offner Receives Delta Young Astronomer Lectureship Award

Each year, the award is given to one or two international scholars under the age of 45.

A man in a face mask presents a statuette to a woman in a face mask

Accolades

Astronomer Brendan Bowler Receives 2022 Sloan Research Fellowship

UT Austin assistant professor of astronomy, Brendan Bowler, has been selected as a 2022 Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellow in Physics for his work related...

Portrait of a man

UT News

Texas Astronomers Discover Strangely Massive Black Hole in Milky Way Satellite Galaxy

UT astronomers María José Bustamante, Eva Noyola, Karl Gebhardt and Greg Zeimann, with colleagues from Germany’s Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics, made the discovery.

An inset within a larger picture of the Milky Way shows both luminous stars and an apparent anomoly

Features

Graduating Senior Finds Passions in Exoplanets and Outreach

Zoe de Beurs wasn't sure what she wanted to do when she first arrived at UT Austin, but after graduating, she started a Ph.D. in...

A young woman in a graduation gown

Research

Astronomers Disprove Planet Orbiting Nearby Barnard’s Star

An international team that included Michael Endl and Bill Cochran discovered what was thought to an exoplanet was not one.

A large and modern apparatus has tubes, metal boxes, wires and insulation

UT News

Exoplanet is Gobbling Up Gas and Dust as it Continues to Build Mass

The Hubble Space Telescope has allowed astronomers including Brendan Bowler from The University of Texas at Austin to get a rare look at a young...

An artist's image suggests a planet is sucking a stream of orbiting light into its mass

Announcements

Texas Astronomers Lead Major Projects in James Webb Space Telescope’s First Year

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...

On a lawn near downtown Austin a model of a giant telescope the size of a tennis court and with many mirrors is displayed at dusk

Research

Two Postdocs Receive Fellowships to Study Extrasolar Planets

Brianna Lacy and Yifan Zhou have received a fellowship that will give them the support to conduct research on exoplanets.

Portrait of two scientists