News: Features

Read the latest news from the Department of Physics

Features

Trick or Treat: Spooky Science to Give You a Scare

Halloween is a good season to treat yourself to some thrilling discoveries from scientists at UT Austin.

Hundreds of bats fly together, marring a backdrop of trees and a sunset.

Oden Institute

Summer School on Quantum Materials

Feliciano Guistino led a week-long workshop for graduate-level students in modern techniques for computational data science and high-performance computing.

Students in a lecture hall discussing a problem and looking at laptop screens

Weinberg Institute

Postcards from the Field: First Light for a New High-Desert Telescope

High in a Chilean desert, scientists at the Simons Observatory probe the cosmic microwave background for clues about the history of the early universe.

A telescope enclosure sits in front of mountains under a blue sky

UT News

What Can A Total Solar Eclipse Teach Us About Our Universe?

Astrophysicists and astronomers at UT Austin have used these rare phenomena to help answer fundamental questions about our universe.

A man on a ladder works on a small white building in a desert

Features

Top Prize Image in Visualizing Science Contest Captures Research Tied to the Sun

Ph.D. student Maile Marriott’s submission illustrates the complexities of the “space weather” generated by our sun.

Top Prize Editor’s Choice

UT News

The Sun’s Corona: A Boiling Pot On An Ice Cube

Jarrod Bianco and Maile Marriott, two graduate students working with physicist Anna Tenerani, talk heliophysics.

A dark line intersects with rings of color and blackness as a light emenates out.

Features

Visualizing Science 2022: Illuminating the Intrinsic Beauty in Academic Research

The winners of our most recent Visualizing Science contest include an image related to “smart” material research, simulations of a meeting between a neutron star and a black hole and the connection between two wildly different areas of mathematics.

Winning Image

Features

Steven Weinberg’s Test of Quantum Mechanics Might Soon Be Realized

Experimental physicist Mark Raizen found himself intrigued by the unrealized potential of Nobel laureate Steven Weinberg's paper.

Glowing laser beams in red, yellow and green criss-cross an atomic clock

Features

Graduating Senior Finds Passions in Exoplanets and Outreach

Zoe de Beurs wasn't sure what she wanted to do when she first arrived at UT Austin, but after graduating, she started a Ph.D. in Planetary Science at MIT.

A young woman in a graduation gown