During the winter months of 2025/26, the Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics Potsdam (AIP) is once again inviting visitors to the popular Babelsberg Starry Nights - live on site. Dr Peter Weilbacher will start the series with his lecture ‘Fire in the Nebula – A Look at the Most Luminous Star-Forming Regions in the Universe’ (in German) on Tuesday, 14 October 2025 at 7:15 p.m.

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Scientists at the AIP have uncovered the intricate magnetic heartbeat of a distant star remarkably similar to our own Sun—but much younger and more active. This groundbreaking study, part of the Far Beyond the Sun campaign, follows nearly three years of ultra precise observations and sheds new light on how stars like our Sun generate their magnetic fields—and how these fields evolve over time.

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Dr Meetu Verma is one of the recipients of this year's WISER programme, a joint initiative of the Indian government's Ministry of Science and Technology (DST) and the German Federal Ministry of Research, Technology and Space (BMFTR).

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Cosmic events are determined by two natural forces: gravity and magnetic fields. The magnetic field research at the AIP is mainly focused on magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) simulations, the magnetically induced activities on the Sun and the stars, solar coronaphysics as well as space weather in our solar system and on planets around other stars.

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Galaxies are fundamental cosmic building blocks. At the largest scales, they serve as markers to study the distribution of matter in the universe - active galaxies and quasars are particularly important because of their intrinsic brightness. Nearby objects can be spatially resolved and consist of populations with very different patterns of motion, star formation histories and chemical abundances.

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