A spiral-shaped cloud formation with a bright, orange center against a dark background.

Black holes outgrow their galaxies

eROSITA identifies active black holes with unusually high mass fractions
Simulation showing complex elliptical orbits of stars influenced by the gravitational pull of a central black hole.

A star with an Extreme Orbit

S301 feels the rotation of the Milky Way’s central black hole
An illustration of three black holes in a spiral galaxy surrounded by luminous stars and interstellar gas.

Cosmic Trio

Three Black Holes Discovered in a Young Galaxy for the first time
Circular astronomical image showing a dense distribution of stars across the field with a distinct bright yellow cluster near the middle, highlighting stellar concentration.

eROSITA delivers the most comprehensive census of the high-energy Universe to date 

Second data release nearly doubles the previously known eROSITA X-ray sources to two million
Visualization of a spiral galaxy with superimposed curved blue lines and clusters of green and orange dots connected by arrows, possibly representing magnetic fields or particle trajectories.

First observational signature of ambipolar diffusion in prestellar core L1544

Observation of the first signature of ambipolar diffusion in a prestellar core. The measurements reveal a subtle drift between ionized and neutral gas, offering new insight into the role of magnetic fields in star formation.
Telescope and spectra

HETDEX Opens Massive Cosmic Dataset to Scientists, Novices, and AI

Today, the Hobby-Eberly Telescope Dark Energy Experiment (HETDEX) - which recently completed the largest survey ever taken of the early universe – has released all of its immense, information-rich database to the public. 
Image of a cosmic area with a prominent bright halo, surrounded by diffuse gas clouds and scattered star formations, labeled "r200m".

Baryons at the Edge: SRG/eROSITA Survey Detects “Missing” Cosmic Gas at the Outskirts of Galaxy Clusters

Missing baryons found in galaxy cluster outskirts.
Research uncovers 90% of missing baryonic matter in galaxy cluster outskirts, enhancing cosmic structure understanding.
A scientific collage of 112 square individual images from the Euclid space telescope, arranged in a six-by-six grid on a black background. Each square shows a different strong gravitational lens in the distant universe. At the center of nearly every image is a bright, mostly yellowish-white foreground galaxy. Surrounding these central galaxies, the effects of spacetime curvature are clearly visible: the light from even more distant background galaxies appears as blue arcs of light, circularly curved arcs, filamentary structures, or nearly closed rings—so-called Einstein rings. Some images also show point-like multiple images of the same background galaxy, arranged symmetrically around the center. The details are very sharp, and in the background of each square, additional tiny, distant galaxies and stars are visible as points of light.

10,000 Euclid lenses wanted: MPE call for Space Warps

Help Classify Euclid Data in Space Warps Project.
Contribute to groundbreaking astronomy by classifying Euclid telescope images in citizen science initiative.
Detailed X-ray image of the sky, illustrating various cosmic phenomena with vibrant colors and bright spots.

Space Telescope Studies Solar System X-ray Glow
 

SRG/eROSITA reveals how our Solar System modifies the appearance of the X-ray sky
Two exoplanets near a star and a graph. To confirm that this new object is indeed a planet and not an extended clump of material within the disc, astronomers observed it with the GRAVITY+ instrument at the VLT Interferometer (VLTI). The VLTI combines the light of several telescopes and is therefore sensitive to very small details. Using GRAVITY+, the team confirmed that that the new object is a point-like source and not an extended cloud within the disc.

Rare Discovery of Two Protoplanets
 

Using the GRAVITY instrument on the ESO’s VLT Interferometer, astronomers have confirmed the existence of the protoplanet WISPIT 2c. This new discovery offers rare insights into planet formation and shows that planetary systems can form in parallel.

People and Project News

Upcoming events

"Stellar Siblings: The Concurrent Formation of Binary Stars and Star Clusters"

Sep 21, 2026 03:30 PM - 04:30 PM (Local Time Germany)
MPA, Room: New Seminar Room, E.0.11

"The Golden Age of Stellar-Mass Black Holes: Do Observations Match Our Predictions?"

Sep 23, 2026 10:00 AM - 10:30 AM (Local Time Germany)
ESO Garching, Room: Library

"Simulating Self-Interacting Dark Matter on GPUs"

Exceptionally on Wednesday instead of Tuesday
Sep 23, 2026 11:00 AM - 11:30 AM (Local Time Germany)
MPA, Room: Lecture Hall E.0.11
September 2026
Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat Sun
1 2 3 4
7 8 9 10 11 12 13
14 15 16 17 18
21 23 24
29 30
"Bridging Gaps in High-Mass Star Research: Physical Parameters, Formation and Evolution"

from Aug 10, 2026 09:00 AM to Sep 4, 2026 06:00 PM (Local Time Germany)

“GraphGP: Scalable Gaussian Processes With Vecchia’s Approximation and Application to the SPHEREx Survey”

Sep 1, 2026 from 11:00 AM to 12:00 PM (Local Time Germany)

Special MPA Cosmology Seminar

"Bridging Gaps in High-Mass Star Research: Physical Parameters, Formation and Evolution"

from Aug 10, 2026 09:00 AM to Sep 4, 2026 06:00 PM (Local Time Germany)

"Bridging Gaps in High-Mass Star Research: Physical Parameters, Formation and Evolution"

from Aug 10, 2026 09:00 AM to Sep 4, 2026 06:00 PM (Local Time Germany)

"Bridging Gaps in High-Mass Star Research: Physical Parameters, Formation and Evolution"

from Aug 10, 2026 09:00 AM to Sep 4, 2026 06:00 PM (Local Time Germany)

"Boron in the Chemical Evolution of the Galaxy: From Astrochemistry to Prebiotic Chemistry"

Sep 4, 2026 from 03:00 PM to 04:00 PM (Local Time Germany)

LMU Open Science Summer School 2026 – Track 2: Open Science Instructor Training

from Sep 14, 2026 09:00 AM to Sep 15, 2026 05:00 PM (Local Time Germany)

"Cluster Lensing in the Stage-IV Era"

Sep 15, 2026 from 11:00 AM to 11:30 AM (Local Time Germany)

"Black Holes as Telescopes"

Sep 15, 2026 from 11:30 AM to 12:00 PM (Local Time Germany)

TBA

Sep 16, 2026 from 11:00 AM to 12:00 PM (Local Time Germany)

"Claude Code: 24/7 Research Assistant"

Sep 16, 2026 from 02:00 PM to 03:00 PM (Local Time Germany)

"Stellar Siblings: The Concurrent Formation of Binary Stars and Star Clusters"

Sep 21, 2026 from 03:30 PM to 04:30 PM (Local Time Germany)

"The Golden Age of Stellar-Mass Black Holes: Do Observations Match Our Predictions?"

Sep 23, 2026 from 10:00 AM to 10:30 AM (Local Time Germany)

"Simulating Self-Interacting Dark Matter on GPUs"

Sep 23, 2026 from 11:00 AM to 11:30 AM (Local Time Germany)

Exceptionally on Wednesday instead of Tuesday

"Filaments to Subfilaments: Uncovering the Hierarchical Structure and Dynamics of the Cosmic Web"

Sep 23, 2026 from 11:30 AM to 12:00 PM (Local Time Germany)

Exceptionally on Wednesday instead of Tuesday

"Software Containerisation for Scientific Applications"

Sep 23, 2026 from 02:00 PM to 04:00 PM (Local Time Germany)

"The Many Scales of Stellar Feedback – A Journey Across 9 Orders of Magnitude"

Sep 24, 2026 from 03:15 PM to 04:15 PM (Local Time Germany)

ORIGINS RU-D Science Day

Sep 29, 2026 from 09:00 AM to 05:00 PM (Local Time Germany)

"SuperCDMS SNOLAB: Current Status and Future Sensitivity to Sub-GeV Dark Matter"

Sep 29, 2026 from 12:30 PM to 01:30 PM (Local Time Germany)

"The Universe at High Speed: The Digital Telescope"

Sep 30, 2026 from 11:00 AM to 12:00 PM (Local Time Germany)

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