Projects | What Are Astronomers Doing&

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What Are Astronomers Doing?
Projects

Observing projects scheduled at McDonald Observatory for the week of January 5:

A Stellar Rosetta Stone

Lisa Prato of Lowell Observatory, along with her collaborators from The University of Texas and Rice University, are using two McDonald telescopes this week to look at companions around young stars. They want to find out how often brown dwarfs pair up with normal stars in binary systems. More »

Exploring Nearby Stars

Earle Luck of Case Western Reserve University continues his study of stars in the Sun's neighborhood, using the 2.1-meter Otto Struve Telescope. More »

Is Earth Unique?

Is Earth unique in the universe? No one, not even astronomers, knows for sure. One way to begin to find out is to look for planetary systems around other stars that are similar to our own. More »

NASA Astronomer of the Week: David Lambert

An international group of astronomers including David L. Lambert, director of McDonald Observatory, has used Hubble Space Telescope to determine the origin of a very unusual and rare type of star. The group's studies indicate that the so-called “extreme helium stars” are formed by the merger of two white dwarf stars. The work recently was published in the The Astrophysical Journal. More »

Unraveling the Mystery of 'Dark Energy'

Hobby-Eberly Telescope astronomers are working on a project that could solve perhaps the most baffling scientific mystery of our time: the nature of 'dark energy.' More »

This program is supported by the National Science Foundation under grant AST 0227870. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.