News

Here you can find latest news and event announcements of the AIP. Older news can be browsed in the News archive.

From 20 to 24 March, 150 participants from 25 countries worldwide meet in Potsdam for the IAU Symposium 379 “Dynamical Masses of Local Group Galaxies”. The focus of the conference is on determining the mass of galaxies in our cosmic neighbourhood.

The next lecture of the virtual Babelsberg Starry Nights of the Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics Potsdam (AIP) on the topic "Robotic telescopes at AIP" will be broadcasted starting on Thursday, 16 March 2023 on the YouTube channel "Urknall, Weltall und das Leben". Please note that the lecture will be given in German.

Huygens built excellent lenses in the 17th century, but his telescopes lacked sharpness in comparison with what was possible at that time. In a recent study, Dr Alex Pietrow, researcher at the Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics Potsdam (AIP), investigated Huygens’ calculations and has concluded that the Dutch astronomer and mathematician was probably near-sighted and would have needed eyeglasses to improve his telescopes.

Astronomers from the Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics Potsdam (AIP) and the Vatican Observatory (VO) teamed up to spectroscopically survey more than 1000 bright stars that potentially host exoplanets.

On Saturday, February 25, the exhibition "Sun. The source of light" at the Museum Barberini. Besides great works by Claude Monet, William Turner and Otto Dix, 15 photographic plates of the Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics Potsdam (AIP) will be presented.

The next lecture of the virtual Babelsberg Starry Nights of the Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics Potsdam (AIP) on the topic "Meteorite Craters on Earth" will be broadcasted starting on Thursday, 19 January 2023 on the YouTube channel "Urknall, Weltall und das Leben". Please note that the lecture will be given in German.

A new instrument, WEAVE, at the William Herschel Telescope on La Palma, an island of the Canaries, has seen first light. It analysed the light of a pair of galaxies 280 million light years away from Earth. The Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics Potsdam (AIP) is one of the project's partners and AIP scientists will get access to its excellent data.

Dr Rainer Weinberger will join the Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics Potsdam (AIP) in 2023 as a Leibniz junior group leader with a project focused on sophisticated cosmological simulations.

“Excellent and visible internationally”: The AIP receives all-around positive feedback in its evaluation, an independent assessment of all Leibniz institutions repeated regularly.

The next lecture of the virtual Babelsberg Starry Nights of the Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics Potsdam (AIP) will be broadcasted starting on Thursday, 17 November 2022 on the YouTube channel "Urknall, Weltall und das Leben". Please note that the lecture will be given in German.

The Gaia collaboration, which is responsible for the spacecraft that is currently building the largest and most precise three-dimensional map of our galaxy, will receive the 2023 Lancelot M. Berkeley − New York Community Trust Prize for Meritorious Work in Astronomy.

On 10 November at the Berlin Brandenburg Academy of Sciences, leading researchers in the field of galaxy evolution will discuss the first results and future prospects of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) together with other observatories in a dedicated Wilhelm and Else Heraeus Symposium.

More news are available in the News archive.