All News (2011 - ...)

The Bavarian Minister for Science and Arts, Bernd Sibler, visited the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics. In addition to a discussion with the Nobel Laureate and MPE Director Reinhard Genzel, he visited the integration hall and the MICADO laboratory. more

A new Partner Group has been established between the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics (MPE) and the Department of Astronomy at the Universidad de Concepción in Chile. The focus of the group is the “baryonic cycle in galaxies” and head of the group is Dr. Rodrigo Herrera-Camus, who was postdoc at MPE from 2015 to 2019. more

At today’s 16^th Marcel Grossmann meeting, Dr. Peter Predehl accepted the Institutional Marcel Grossmann Award, which has been awarded to the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics (MPE). The institute receives the award jointly with the S.A. Lavochkin Association and the Space Research Institute (IKI) of the Russian Academy of Sciences “for the creation of the world’s best X-ray map of the entire sky”. more

From 27 June – 2 July 2021 the 70th Nobel Laureate Meetings took place in Lindau. Last year’s physics Noble Laureate Reinhard Genzel from MPE was one of the 70 Nobel Laureates who met with some 600 young scientists. more

First eROSITA X-ray data release to the public more

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Interview of Nobel Laureate Reinhard Genzel with Harald Lesch at the Plenary Assembly of the 72th Annual Meeting of the Max Planck Society on 24.06.2021. more

On 21 June 2021, the Bavarian State Secretary for Economic Affairs, Regional Development and Energy, Roland Weigert, awarded the Federal Cross of Merit on Ribbon to Professor Dr Volker Schönfelder, former head of the Gamma Astronomy Group at MPE from 1982 to 2004. more

The Leopoldina announced on 17 June 2021 that Reinhard Genzel, Director at the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics, has been elected Vice-Chancellor of the Order Pour le mérite for Sciences and Arts. He thus takes over the class of natural sciences within the Order. more

By now, the SRG/eROSITA telescope has complete more than half of its third scan of the entire X-ray sky. The first all-sky image was released in summer 2020, which can be seen here in an interactive 360° view. This map contains more than one million objects, most of them active galactic nuclei at cosmological distances, marking the growth of gigantic black holes over cosmic time. Clusters of galaxies in the new map will be used to track the growth of cosmic structures and constrain cosmological parameters. Closer to home, stars with hot coronae, binaries and supernova remnants dot our Galaxy - the hot band in the middle of the image. more

Using the SRG/eROSITA all-sky survey data, scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics have found two previously quiescent galaxies that now show quasi-periodic eruptions. The nuclei of these galaxies light up in X-rays every few hours, reaching peak luminosities comparable to that of an entire galaxy. The origin of this pulsating behaviour is unclear. A possible cause is a stellar object orbiting the central black hole. As these galaxies are relatively close and small, this discovery could help scientists to better understand how black holes are activated in low-mass galaxies. more

For her excellent Dissertation, MPE junior scientist Elena Redaelli will receive the Otto Hahn Medal from the Max Planck Society in 2021. The prize is awarded for work on regions of our Galaxy where stars like our Sun are currently formed, being able to unveil the physical and chemical structure of interstellar molecular clouds. Her thesis on various aspects of star formation includes three peer-reviewed papers and future work with enough material for more papers as well as ideas for future observations and analysis. more