News

Researchers at UT Austin are involved in some of the most exciting areas of science and driving groundbreaking discoveries and technologies that impact our world.

Astronomers have barely scratched the surface of mapping the nearly endless stars and galaxies of the heavens. Using supercomputers and the help of thousands of citizen scientists around the world, researchers with The University of Texas at Austin have now revealed the locations of more than 200,000 new astronomical objects. Their goal is to map even more and use that knowledge to predict the ultimate fate of the universe.

The Cosmic Dawn ("CoDa") Project, an international team of astrophysicists, recently reached a new milestone – CoDa III – the first trillion-element simulation of how the universe evolved in its first billion years. This is when galaxies formed and flooded the universe with enough UV starlight to ionize all its atoms and lift the fog that blocked our view. CoDa III is the most detailed and accurate simulation ever produced of this cosmic era, known as the Epoch of Reionization ("EoR"), aligning theoretical and observational data for the first time.

New images from NASA's James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) reveal for the first time galaxies with stellar bars — elongated features of stars stretching from the centers of galaxies into their outer disks — at a time when the universe was a mere 25% of its present age. The finding of so-called barred galaxies, similar to our Milky Way, this early in the universe will require scientists to refine their theories of galaxy evolution.

​Like the Hubble Space Telescope before it, the James Webb Space Telescope has the potential to change the course of astronomy and inspire a new generation of astronomers.

Astronomers on a historically ambitious and massive galaxy-mapping mission have activated more than 10,000 amateur scientists in 85 countries to help in their quest. Now they hope to significantly scale up their volunteer force for a unique project that could reveal for the first time the nature of dark energy.

Arianna Long, a NASA Hubble Postdoctoral Fellow at The University of Texas at Austin, was awarded one of the inaugural Eric and Wendy Schmidt Awards for Excellence in Science Communication from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. This award honors science journalists and research scientists who have developed creative, original work related to issues and advances in science, engineering, and/or medicine to inform the general public.

Just milliseconds after the universe's Big Bang, chaos reigned. Atomic nuclei fused and broke apart in hot, frenzied motion. Incredibly strong pressure waves built up and squeezed matter so tightly together that black holes formed, which astrophysicists call primordial black holes.

Scientists have uncovered what sets the masses of stars, a mystery that has captivated astrophysicists for decades. Their answer? Stars, themselves.

Two new images from NASA's James Webb Space Telescope show what may be among the earliest galaxies ever observed. Both images include objects from more than 13 billion years ago, and one offers a much wider field of view than Webb's First Deep Field image, which was released amid great fanfare July 12. The images represent some of the first out of a major collaboration of astronomers and other academic researchers teaming with NASA and global partners to uncover new insights about the universe.

The Giant Magellan Telescope (GMT) is a next-generation optical/infrared telescope being developed in northern Chile that will yield important discoveries on topics such as galaxies in the early universe and Earth-sized planets orbiting nearby stars.

What starts here reveals the universe. A world-changing gift of $10 million from visionary philanthropist David Booth increases UT's access to the Giant Magellan Telescope, which will help students in the College of Natural Sciences peer far into the universe.

An international group of astronomers led by Benjamin Thomas of The University of Texas at Austin has used observations from the Hobby-Eberly Telescope (HET) at the university's McDonald Observatory to unlock a puzzling mystery about a stellar explosion discovered several years ago and evolving even now. The results, published in today's issue of The Astrophysical Journal, will help astronomers better understand the process of how massive stars live and die.

FORT DAVIS, Texas — The University of Texas at Austin's McDonald Observatory will hold its first Dark Skies Festival Friday, April 29, and Saturday, April 30. The festival will include daytime and evening events for the whole family, plus the debut of the new "Preserving Dark Skies" exhibit in the Frank N. Bash Visitors Center. Both the exhibit and the festival are funded by Apache Corporation.

NASA has selected 24 new Fellows for its prestigious NASA Hubble Fellowship Program (NHFP), two of whom are heading to The University of Texas at Austin. The program enables outstanding postdoctoral scientists to pursue independent research in any area of NASA astrophysics, using theory, observations, simulations, experimentation or instrument development. Each fellowship provides the awardee up to three years of support at a university or research center of their choosing in the United States.