All News (2011 - ...)

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

The Technical University of Munich (TUM) has appointed Frank Eisenhauer as an honorary professor. It awards the honorary title of “TUM Distinguished Affiliated Professor” to individuals whose scientific work has had an internationally influential effect on their discipline and has also made a significant impact on the scientific world. The TUM also acknowledges the public role model that results from the scientific excellence of its honorary professors. more

Jinyi Shangguan leads new Max Planck Partner Group with China to study the growth of supermassive black holes. more

The first Euclid data published by ESA (Q1) provide impressive insights into the depths of the universe. They include high-resolution images of 26 million galaxies, reveal the finest structures and make it possible for the first time to precisely determine the shape and distance of more than 380,000 galaxies. This data is a milestone and yet only marks the beginning of research into dark matter and dark energy. And the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics (MPE) plays a central role in all of this. more

Federal President of Germany, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, accompanied by a delegation including Reinhard Genzel, Nobel Prize winner and Director of the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics, visited the European Southern Observatory's Paranal Observatory in Chile and the construction site of the Extremely Large Telescope. The latter will be the largest optical and infrared telescope in the world. It will investigate, among other science goals, the atmospheres of distant Earth-like planets and search for signs of life beyond Earth. However, some of the planned research objectives could be prevented by an industrial plant that is to be built not far from the observatories. The light and air pollution from the plant would affect the previously uniquely clear view into space. more

Einstein Probe satellite, a collaboration of, among others, the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics (MPE) and the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), has captured an extraordinary celestial event: an X-ray outburst from a rare binary system. This discovery sheds new light on the evolution of massive stars and demonstrates the unique capabilities of Einstein Probe in detecting transient X-ray sources. more

A team of scientists has found the largest superstructure ever reliably characterised in the universe. The discovery was made while mapping the nearby universe using galaxy clusters detected by the ROSAT X-ray satellite's survey of the sky. With a length of about 1.4 billion lightyears, the new structure, which consists mainly of dark matter, is the largest known structure to date. Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics (MPE) and the Max Planck Institute for Physics (MPP) led the study in collaboration with colleagues in Spain and South Africa. more

Studies of rock and dust from asteroid Bennu delivered to Earth by NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft and analyzed by, among others, researchers from MPE’s Center of Astrochemistry (CAS), have revealed molecules that, on our planet, are key to life, as well as a history of saltwater that could have served as the “broth” for these compounds to interact and combine.
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Einstein Probe has opened a new window onto the distant X-ray Universe, promising new views of the most faraway explosions in the cosmos. Less than three months after launch, the spacecraft already discovered a puzzling blast of X-rays that could require a change the way we explain the extraordinary explosions known as gamma-ray bursts.
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Dr. Esra Bulbul, lead scientist for the eROSITA cluster science and cosmology working group at the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics (MPE), has been awarded the prestigious Mid-Career Award by the High Energy Astrophysics Division (HEAD) of the American Astronomical Society (AAS). This recognition highlights her pioneering contributions to astrophysics and cosmology research. more