On January 30th, 2026, the ESO signed an agreement with a large international consortium for the design and construction of BlueMUSE, a blue-optimised panoramic integral field spectrograph being developed for ESO's Very Large Telescope (VLT). With its large field of view, high spectral resolution, and exceptional efficiency in the blue wavelength range, BlueMUSE will enable unique observations.

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During the night from 19th to 20th January, colleagues at the AIP managed to capture images of the Northern Lights over Potsdam and even the AIP itself. The celestial phenomenon was triggered by a solar flare that occurred at around 6 p.m. on 18 January 2026. The solar wind released by the flare reached Earth during the night, creating colourful veils in the sky.

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The next talk of the Virtual Babelsberg Starry Nights of the Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics Potsdam (AIP) entitled "The interactions between stars and planets" (in German) by Dr. Nikoleta Ilić Petković will be broadcast on the YouTube channel “Urknall, Weltall und das Leben” (Big Bang, Universe and Life) from Thursday, 15.01.2026.

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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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