Travel & Outdoors
December 8, 2020
Jupiter and Saturn Will Soon Align in a Rare Astronomical Marvel, and You Can Start Watching Now
With help from the McDonald Observatory in West Texas, we share seven beginner stargazing tips.
McDonald Observatory
Travel & Outdoors
February 11, 2016
InstaTexas: The Stars At Night…
Are big and bright—and ready for their close-up.
Travel & Outdoors
January 9, 2014
Afraid of Losing the Dark
The McDonald Observatory, celebrating its seventy-fifth anniversary this year, forges ahead with groundbreaking research and crusades to keep the night skies of West Texas pristine and unadulterated.
Travel & Outdoors
January 20, 2013
Marfa Best Western
In Donald Judd’s last interview before his death, in 1994, the artist explained that he’d first come to Marfa two decades earlier because he “just wanted a place in the Southwest for the summertime.” Whether he intended it or not, this far West Texas town has since become the…
Feature
March 31, 2008
The Final Frontier
Karl Gebhardt and Gary Hill, two astronomers from the University of Texas at Austin, are racing to solve one of the greatest mysteries in science: What is dark energy? How does it work? Can it explain the origins of the universe? There’s only one problem. Dark energy may not actually…