All News (2011 - ...)

Prof. Dr. Reinhard Genzel, Nobel Prize Laureate in Physics 2020 and Director of the Infrared Group at MPE, receives the Bavarian Constitutional Order 2025. The honor, presented by State Parliament President Ilse Aigner, recognizes his groundbreaking research on supermassive black holes and his commitment to science in Bavaria. more

Nearly 30 Leading Scientists Urge Chile to Relocate INNA Industrial Project Threatening World-Class Observatory more

Four powerful Lasers enhance Observational Power of ESO’s Paranal Observatory more

ESA’s space telescope captures the astonishing diversity of galaxies – and MPE scientists trace how mergers shape their cores more

With unprecedented detail, a team of astronomers led by MPE have imaged the youngest disks around new-born stars. These glowing, chaotic systems are hotter and heavier than expected, hinting that planets may start forming much earlier than previously thought. more

First light marks the start of an ambitious mission to decode the physical and chemical fingerprints of thousands of celestial objects at once. more

New GRAVITY+ and ERIS observations uncover surprising black hole properties and powerful gas outflows in the early cosmos. more

The Astronomical Society is awarding Dr. Frank Grupp the 2025 Instrument Development Prize for his outstanding leadership in the design and construction of the NISP instrument. Grupp is a scientist at the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics and at Ludwig Maximilian University (LMU) in Munich. As project manager, he was responsible for the NISP optics instrument for ESA's Euclid space telescope. With the largest optical lens systems ever manufactured for a space mission, Grupp and his team set new standards. more

The German Astronomical Society (AG) has awarded the prestigious Karl Schwarzschild Medal 2025 to Prof. Dr. Paola Caselli, Director of the Center for astrochemical studies (CAS) at the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics (MPE) in Garching, for her groundbreaking work in the fields of astrochemistry and star formation. more

Teresa Valdivia-Mena receives both Otto Hahn Medal and Otto Hahn Award from the Max Planck Society more

The new Federal Minister of Research, Technology and Space, Dorothee Bär, was a guest at the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics. In addition to a discussion with Nobel Prize winner and MPE Director Reinhard Genzel, she also visited the integration hall where the MICADO instrument is currently being constructed. more

For the first time, a team at Leiden University led by Ewine van Dishoek, an external scientific member of MPE, has robustly detected semi-heavy water ice around a young, sun-like star. These results support the theory that some of the water in our solar system originated before the Sun and its planets formed. The researchers used the James Webb Space Telescope to make their discovery, which they have published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters. more