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We are honored to inform you that Reinhard Genzel, together with Andrea Ghez and Roger Penrose, receive the Nobel Prize in Physics 2020 for their research on black holes.> more |
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Reinhard Genzel receives the Nobel Prize for Physics 2020
The Max Planck director is honoured for his observations of the black hole in the galactic center
A planet-forming disk still fed by the mother cloud
Stellar systems like our own form inside interstellar clouds of gas and dust that collapse producing young stars surrounded by protoplanetary disks. Planets form within these protoplanetary disks, leaving clear gaps. ALMA has now revealed an evolved protoplanetary disk with a large gap still being fed by the surrounding cloud via large accretion filaments. This shows that accretion of material onto the protoplanetary disk is continuing for times longer than previously thought, affecting the evolution of the future planetary system.
Stars and Planets Grow Up Together as Siblings
ALMA shows rings around the still-growing proto-star IRS 63
First direct observation of exoplanet β Pictoris c
Astronomers using the GRAVITY instrument have now obtained the first direct confirmation of an exoplanet discovered by radial-velocity. As the planet “β Pictoris c” is in a close orbit around its parent star, this is the first time that the faint glint of the exoplanet next to the glare of the star has been directly observed. With these observations, astronomers can obtain both the flux and dynamical masses of exoplanets, allowing them to put closer constrains on formation models for exoplanets.
GRAVITY observes young star feeding from its surrounding disk
A team of astronomers have observed for the first time the columns of matter that build newborn stars. This detailed look inside the young stellar system, using the GRAVITY instrument built at the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics (MPE) and operated at the ESO Very Large Telescopes, revealed that the material is guided by magnetic fields and comes from the disks surrounding these stars, the same disks that eventually give rise to planets.
A growing stellar system directly fed by the mother cloud
For the first time, astronomers have observed a conveyor belt from the outskirts of a star-forming dense cloud directly depositing material near a pair of young forming stars. Scientists at MPE and IRAM found that gas motions in the conveyor belt, dubbed a 'streamer', mainly obey the gravitational pull of the innermost part of the core, near the protostar pair.
SDSS reveals 11 billion years of the history of our expanding Universe
The Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) released today a comprehensive analysis of the largest three-dimensional map of the Universe ever created, filling in the most significant gaps in our possible exploration of its history. The collaboration, including researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics, was able to obtain the most accurate measurements of the expansion history of our Universe over the widest-ever range of cosmic time.
Our deepest view of the X-ray sky
The eROSITA telescope has provided a new, sharp view of hot and energetic processes across the Universe.