News: Research

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.

A deep view of space is dotted with stars and galaxies

McDonald Observatory

Vast Molecular Cloud Discovered Near Our Solar System

One of the largest single structures in the sky, the cloud is about 40 moons across, but not visible to the unaided eye.

A city skyline at night is illuminated by countless lights reflecting off the water in the foreground. Above the city, a full moon glows brightly against a star-studded sky. Dominating the night sky is a large, ethereal purple cloud, adding a surreal and cosmic element to the urban landscape.

McDonald Observatory

UT Astronomer Peers Deeper into Mysterious Flame Nebula

Postdoctoral researcher Matthew De Furio led the research that found the smallest brown dwarfs in the nebula.

Three telescope images of a colorful stellar nebula

McDonald Observatory

Newfound Galaxy Class May Indicate Early Black Hole Growth

Many galaxies known as little red dots (LRDs) appear to harbor growing supermassive black holes.

An image with six panels, each displaying a bright red blob on a black background

McDonald Observatory

Astronomers Discover Youngest Transiting Planet Ever

The planet, named TIDYE-1b, is roughly the size of Jupiter and is an estimated 3 million years old.

Illustration of a planet passing in front of its star

Research

UT Astronomers Find JWST Data Conflicts with Reionization Models

Observations from the James Webb Space Telescope spawned a new tension around when a major change in the universe happened.

An abstract pattern of blue, purple and black areas represents the output of a computer simulation of galaxies ionizing hydrogen gas during the epoch of Reionization

UT News

UT Astronomers Race To Capture Image of Exoplanet Near Star

Brendan Bowler was part of a team to help find the lowest-mass/closest-to-its-host-star distant planet ever found.

An astronomical digitialized sky survey shows stellar patches with various levels of brightness. In a pull-out nearby, a circle is labeled JWST, with a brightest section labeled AF Lep b near a host star. Comparison lines nearby indicate how the Jupiter-Sun Distance and Earth-Sun distance compare.

McDonald Observatory

Early Dark Energy Could Resolve Cosmology’s Two Biggest Puzzles

Michael Boylan-Kolchin and others show “early dark energy” might help solve the Hubble Tension and explain why there are more early galaxies than expected.

Views of the early universe from a computer model

Research

Early Galaxies Weren’t Too Big for Their Britches After All

It got called the crisis in cosmology. But now astronomers can explain some surprising recent discoveries.

In the blackness of space, a bright object in the center of view is surrounded and partly obscured by a dark cloud

UT News

Astronomers Use AI to Find Elusive Stars 'Gobbling Up' Planets

The work reveals what planets outside our solar system are made of.

A bright star surrouned by rocky debris from a destroyed planet