Texas Astronomers Collaborate to Find Goldilocks Planet
The planet is the first located in the "just-right" orbit that's not too hot, nor too cold for water to exist in liquid form, making life as we know it possible.
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From the College of Natural Sciences
Pair of Black Holes "Weigh In" at 10 Billion Suns; Most Massive Yet
Astronomers have discovered the most massive black holes to date — two monsters weighing as much as 10 billion suns and threatening to consume anything, even light, within a region five times the size of our solar system.
Young Astronomer Sally Dodson-Robinson Receives Prestigious Career Grant from National Science Foundation
Dodson-Robinson will use funding to support her research program called "Giant Planets in Dusty Disks."
Astronomers Discover Unusual Multi-Planet Solar System With NASA’s Kepler Spacecraft
A team of researchers has used NASA's Kepler space telescope to discover an unusual multiple-planet system containing a super-Earth and two Neptune-sized planets orbiting in resonance with each other.
Astronomers Discover Stars Locked in Fatal Dance
Astronomers have discovered a pair of burnt-out stars spiraling into one another at breakneck speeds.UT Experiment Grapples With Essence of Gravity
We have all experienced gravity, but even to the brightest minds in science, it remains largely a mystery. Gary J. Hill, an astronomer at the University of Texas at Austin, is trying to change that.
Giant Magellan Telescope: A New Window on the Universe
The Giant Magellan Telescope (GMT) will be larger than any telescope in existence today. When completed it will take advantage of seven large light-gathering mirrors at a prime observing site to see the distant reaches of the universe. It will also produce images up to 10 times sharper than the Hubble Space Telescope. Ten institutions, including The University of Texas at Austin and Texas A&M, are partnering to raise the funds necessary to build the GMT — in what will likely be a paradigm shift in what we know about the universe.
Texas Astronomers Find Super-luminous Supernova
Astronomers have found another extremely bright, rare supernova to add to the new class of exploding stars that were identified a few years ago.Grahams Boost Dark Energy Studies
Gift from Bob and Annie Graham will help astronomers solve the mystery of dark energy.Buckyballs, Largest Known Molecules, More Common in Space Than Thought
Observations made with NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope have provided surprises concerning the presence of buckminsterfullerenes, or "buckyballs," the largest known molecules in space.First Stars in the Universe Weren't Lonely
The first stars to form in the universe were not as lonely as previously thought, finds Volker Bromm.Texas Astronomers "Weigh" Heaviest Known Black Hole in our Cosmic Neighborhood
Astronomers led by Karl Gebhardt have measured the most massive known black hole in our cosmic neighborhood by combining data from a giant telescope in Hawai'i and a smaller telescope at the McDonald Observatory.Texas Astronomer Wins Japanese Physics Prize
Astronomer Eiichiro Komatsu of The University of Texas at Austin has been awarded the 25th annual Nishinomiya-Yukawa Memorial Prize for physics.
Project to Study 'Dark Energy' Receives $8 Million From National Science Foundation
A project to discover the nature of dark energy, a mysterious force causing the expansion of the universe to speed up, has received an $8 million grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF). AUSTIN, Texas — A project to discover the nature of dark energy, a mysterious force causing the expansion of the universe to speed up, has received an $8...
Quasar Girl
Astronomy student Krista Smith fulfills her dream to become an astronomer and studies quasars, the massive, incredibly distant, extraordinarily bright galaxies with active black holes at their center.
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