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 · 2mo 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 · 2mo 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

A Night at the Telescope 🔭 news.utexas.edu/2026/03/06/a...

A Night at the Telescope

The Harlan J. Smith Scholars program takes undergraduate astronomy students out west to observe and capture data on one of the world’s largest telescopes.

news.utexas.edu

I’m so excited to be joining Astronomy on Tap ATX for their 97th show, along with my friend Ido Mizrahy! A night full of #astronomy talks, astronomy news, merch, and more! March 16 - Celis Brewery 7PM #AoTATX is FREE and open to all ages! @astronomyontap.bsky.social @texasastronomy.bsky.social

UT Astronomer Appointed President of Organization Building World’s Most Powerful Telescope mcdonaldobservatory.org/news/release...

Registration is open! AI Boot Camp For Astronomers Presented by the NSF-Simons AI Institute for Cosmic Origins and the Texas Advanced Computing Center June 1st-5th 2026 Location: Pickle Research Campus, UT Austin Learn more cosmicai.org/astroai-boot... @simonsfoundation.org @utaustin.bsky.social

Public voting is now open for our 2026 Visualizing Science contest! See this year’s entries & vote at txsci.net/2026VisSciEntries #SciArt #ArtinScience #ScienceArt #ScientificArt #ArtandScience @texas-ib.bsky.social @utaustinchemistry.bsky.social @texasastronomy.bsky.social @utmsi.bsky.social

The explosive death of a star at its earliest, fleeting stage has been revealed by the ESO & a group of astronomers — including UT’s J. Craig Wheeler. #Spectropolarimetry #Supernova @texasastronomy.bsky.social More: mcdonaldobservatory.org/news/release... Artist interpretation video by @eso.org:

Giant Magellan Telescope: Taft Armandroff and Brian Schmidt Elected to Lead Giant Magellan Telescope Board of Directors giantmagellan.org/2025/11/04/t...

Taft Armandroff and Brian Schmidt Elected to Lead Giant Magellan Telescope Board of Directors

New leadership appointed to guide the next phase of construction as Dr. Walter Massey concludes nearly a decade of service as chair of the GMTO Corporation Board of Directors

giantmagellan.org

The University of Texas at Austin: Tiny Galaxy, Big Find: Black Hole Discovered in Nearby Segue 1 mcdonaldobservatory.org/news/release...

New research from UT astronomers could change how we look at binary star formation. #BinaryStars @taccutexas.bsky.social @utaustin.bsky.social @mcdonaldobs.bsky.social oden.utexas.edu/news-and-eve...

Born Together: A New Look at Binary Stars

Two Oden faculty, postdoctoral fellow Aleksey Generozov and professor Stella Offner, published a gro...

oden.utexas.edu

We're hiring!

Welcome back Longhorns! 🤘Wishing you all a great new academic year. 🎓

Congrats to Stella Offner on earning a Cottrell Scholar Singular Exceptional Endeavors of Discovery (SEED) Award for 2025! #CottrellScholars #TexasScience @utaustin.bsky.social @texasastronomy.bsky.social @mcdonaldobs.bsky.social

Research Corporation for Science Advancement@rescorp.org · 12mo ago

RCSA has made awards to 10 #CottrellScholars to advance high-impact research activities through its 2025 Cottrell SEED Awards.

Vote to bring our panel “Revolutionizing Astronomy+ AI with Next Generation Big Data” to SXSW! Register for a SXSW account & vote by clicking the heart ❤️ - open now til Aug 24! participate.sxsw.com/flow/sxsw/sx...

PanelPicker | SXSW Conference & Festivals

PanelPicker® is the official SXSW user-generated session proposal platform. Enter ideas and vote to help shape Conference programming for SXSW and SXSW EDU.

participate.sxsw.com

University of Texas at Austin: Meet the Universe’s Earliest Confirmed Black Hole: A Monster at the Dawn of Time news.utexas.edu/2025/08/06/m...

Meet the Universe’s Earliest Confirmed Black Hole: A Monster at the Dawn of Time

AUSTIN, Texas — An international team of astronomers, led by The University of Texas at Austin’s Cosmic Frontier Center, has identified the most distant

news.utexas.edu