#NASARoman activated the Wide Field Instrument—a 300-megapixel infrared camera that will allow it to explore wide swaths of the cosmos quickly. This test image captures the very first photons of starlight to reach the instrument—taken as an initial performance assessment: https://go.nasa.gov/4rg4qEc

🔭 Where Your Elements Came From Image Credit: NASA's GSFC, SVS ap260914

A new paper that I'm excited to be a part of: Little Red Dots (LRDs) at high redshift have very specific chemical signatures of high-temperature hydrogen burning generally only seen in nearby globular clusters (GCs). This may indicate GCs and LRDs are connected and both hosted supermassive stars! 🧪

We're hiring two faculty positions this year! One is an open search for a tenure-track professor and one is for a tenured or tenure-track position in astronomical information. 🔭✨ More info in the AAS job register: aas.org/jobregister/... aas.org/jobregister/...

UT Austin grad student Junehyoung Jeon has a really nice paper out today on growth requirements for supermassive black holes and little red dots in the early Universe. He shows the only way to get so massive so early is by feeding the black holes as efficiently as possible. Intriguing! 🧪

Early Supermassive Black Holes and Little Red Dots Require Free-Fall Growth

Supermassive black holes/active galactic nuclei (SMBHs/AGN), forming only a few hundred million years after the Big Bang as observed with the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), challenge theoretical u...

arxiv.org

We need your eyes! 🖥️ Introducing Rubin: Blobs and Blurs, a new citizen science project using NSF–DOE Rubin Observatory data. 🔭🧪 We’re on the hunt for faint, blurry galaxies that are dominated by invisible dark matter & often hard for computers to identify. zooniverse.org/rubin

podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/t...

What NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope could teach us about the universe

Podcast Episode · Texas Standard · August 31 · 48m

podcasts.apple.com

Had a fun chat with @texasstandard.bsky.social this morning!

Texas Standard@texasstandard.bsky.social · last mo.

Scientists say the telescope, which can capture a larger field of view than the Hubble telescope, will help study dark matter, dark energy, and exoplanets. texasstandard.org/stories/nasa...

You've likely heard about the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope launch yesterday. Use of this incredible instrument is already highly coveted, and UT Austin won more resources to use the telescope than researchers at ANY other university in the country!🤘 mcdonaldobservatory.org/2026/08/ut-a...

There's a nearly-total lunar eclipse tomorrow and it's visible in Austin! If it's not visible where you are because of weather or location, TimeandDate.com will have a live stream: www.timeanddate.com/live/eclipse...

Welcome back Longhorns! Best wishes for you all as we start a new academic year. 🤘

Over the summer, we were delighted to host 8 visiting students as part of our 2026 NSF REU program! They will present results from their exciting research projects at the winter American Astronomical Society meeting in Salt Lake City. 🔭⭐

🎉 Congrats to the newly launched National Center for STEM Education (formerly UT each Institute)! We look forward to what’s next. Learn more: nationalstemed.org/news/press-r...

Today's eclipse isn't visible in Texas, but you can tune in to a variety of live steams and relive what we saw in Austin in 2024!

European Space Agency@esa.int · 2mo ago

🔴We're LIVE from the Observatorio Astrofísico de Javalambre in Spain - join us as we show the total solar eclipse as it happens! Watch here 👉 www.youtube.com/live/DRDx2xD... or watch.esa.int/Two/ 🚨⚠️ Only use certified eclipse glasses (ISO 12312-2) to look at the Sun! #EuropeanSolarEclipse

CosmicAI Fall Hybrid Seminar Series Schedule is now live! Theme: Surrogate Modeling of (Astro) Physical Systems 🕐1–2 PM CT (2–3 PM ET) 📍In person and on Zoom Join our mailing list or Slack workspace to get the Zoom link and details cosmicai.org/get-involved cosmicai.org/hybrid-semin...

The Perseid meteor shower peaks this week. Here’s how to get the best view in Austin - www.kut.org/energy-envir...

The Perseid meteor shower peaks this week. Here’s how to get the best view in Austin

The peak of the popular astronomical event aligns with a new moon, meaning skies will be darker and the meteors easier to see.

kut.org

CosmicAI 2026 Research Highlights 📖 92 journal articles, proceedings, and preprints. 💫 1024 cosmological simulations built to contextualize the Milky Way and constrain uncertainties 💡 40+ talks shared 📎 15 seed funded proposals awarded

A CosmicAI team set out to understand an urgent question across all research disciplines: when scientists lean on AI tools during the earliest, ideation-heavy stages of work, what happens to their sense of accountability, transparency, and trust cosmicai.org/news/how-res... @mattlease.bsky.social

How Researchers Navigate Accountability, Transparency, and Trust When Using AI Tools in Research — NSF-Simons AI Institute for Cosmic Origins

CosmicAI Researchers Sanjana Gautam , Houjiang Liu , and Matthew Lease - alongside Yujin Choi , set out to understand a question that's becoming urgent across every research discipline: when sci...

cosmicai.org

Grad Certificate in AI/ML + Astrophysics-AI Badge - Spring 2027 apps open! CosmicAI x UT Austin CDSO 12 credits, 100% online Priority deadline Aug 1, final Sept 1. Scholarships avail for early-career researchers. form.jotform.com/261535798839... Apply cdso.utexas.edu/caiml @thenrao.bsky.social

One Idea, Two Cosmic Mysteries: Linking Little Red Dots and Globular Clusters A new study led by astronomers at The University of Texas at Austin proposes a theory that could solve two astronomical riddles at once. mcdonaldobservatory.org/2026/07/one-...

How long will natural darkness last? NYTimes article highlights major concerns for the dark skies of the Big Bend Region, as plans to build a border wall bring bright light to untouched land. Learn how this could affect science at UT Austin's McDonald Observatory www.nytimes.com/2026/07/14/s...

Dark Sky Defenders Raise Alarm Along the Border of West Texas (Gift Article)

Residents fear that the Trump administration’s plans to build a border wall will threaten the region’s spectacular starry skies.

nytimes.com

The Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute (#KASI) has committed to a new investment in the Giant Magellan Telescope! 🔗 Learn about the global partnerships advancing humanity’s understanding of our universe! mcdonaldobservatory.org/2026/07/kore...

Using the Hobby-Eberly Telescope at McDonald Observatory, astronomers have taken a closer look at a nearby exoplanet and discovered it may be more Earth-like than previously thought. mcdonaldobservatory.org/2026/06/near...

Exciting new clues about the nature of Little Red Dots from a team of astronomers led by UT Austin astronomer Vasily Kokorev!

ESA Space Science@science.esa.int · 4mo ago

🕳️⭐ Webb has found the strongest evidence yet for ‘black hole stars’! Webb's observations suggest that a little red dot called GLIMPSE-17775 is in fact a supermassive black hole enveloped in a dense cocoon of partially ionised gas. 🔭 🧪 ☀️ 1/2

Check out the nice video that @texasastronomy.bsky.social postdoc Jenna Samuel made to explain her work on galaxy formation in the early cosmos! 🧪

NSF-Simons AI Institute for Cosmic Origins (CosmicAI)@nsfsimonscosmicai.bsky.social · 4mo ago

Using cutting-edge simulations, Dr. Jenna Samuel, Prof. @mbkplus.bsky.social, & Asst. Prof Julian Munoz investigated a major puzzle revealed by the JWST: why do the earliest galaxies appear brighter, more massive, & clumpier than expected? cosmicai.org/news/researc... www.youtube.com/watch?v=h5dI...

The Hobby-Eberly Telescope Dark Energy Experiment at UT Austin and the @mcdonaldobs.bsky.social has released a new database of early-forming galaxies and the cosmic web between them, expanding opportunities for discovery by researchers, students, citizen scientists, and more. bit.ly/4uMJPZ1

The Hobby Eberly Telescope Dark Energy Survey (HETDEX) first public data release is now available! mcdonaldobservatory.org/news/release...

Check out the great overview by the NY Times of UT Astronomy's work to understand Dark Energy from some of the darkest skies in the US! 🔭 www.nytimes.com/2026/04/22/s...

Dark Skies and Dark Energy Converge at a West Texas Star Party

nytimes.com

The University of Texas at Austin: Astronomers Thought the Early Universe Was Full of Hydrogen. Now They’ve Found It. hetdex.org/astronomers-...

Astronomers Thought the Early Universe Was Full of Hydrogen. Now They’ve Found It. - HETDEX

Astronomers using data from the Hobby–Eberly Telescope Dark Energy Experiment (HETDEX) have discovered tens of thousands of gigantic hydrogen gas halos, called “Lyman-alpha nebulae,” surrounding galax...

hetdex.org

Congrats to all the winners of the 2026 Visualizing Science Contest, including UT Astronomy grad student Joohyun Lee and Professor Paul Shapiro! See all of the winning images here: cns.utexas.edu/news/feature...

Visualizing Science Contest Winners for 2026 Span Disciplines

The college’s 2026 Visualizing Science competition finalists span a number of disciplines.

cns.utexas.edu