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.

This spring, science and research take center stage at the Texas Science Festival. Happening Feb. 21 through March 4, the event is open to all and offers something for everyone—with options to join in or out of Texas. Participants of all ages will engage with, understand and be invigorated by scientific discovery at this year's event, themed around "Impact and Ideas to Transform Lives."

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.

A dozen offerings from The University of Texas at Austin were ranked among the nation's best "Degrees of the Future 2022" by Gizmodo. The ranking came in a new special report from the technology, science and culture publication dedicated to "honoring the universities preparing students for tomorrow."