Dr Lara Cullinane has been awarded a prestigious Leibniz Junior Research Group to investigate the evolution of the Magellanic Clouds, our nearest galactic neighbours. Her project, titled ’Chronicling the Clouds: Chemodynamics of the Most Massive Dwarf Galaxies’ will use the cutting-edge 4MOST instrument to uncover how these galaxies formed, evolved, and interacted over billions of years.

On Thursday, 11 December 2025, the Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics Potsdam (AIP) will open its doors for a very special evening in the context of a joint event organised by the „Potsdamer Lesesalon“ and the AIP. Under the title ‘Galaxies and Cosmic Cats – A Starry Night Between Science and Fiction,’ Potsdam author Tobias Radloff and Dr Ramona Augustin from the AIP invite you to join them on an interdisciplinary expedition into space.

Dr Joseph Whittingham receives a prize from the Physikalische Gesellschaft zu Berlin e.V. (Berlin Physical Society) for his doctoral thesis, which he completed under the supervision of Prof. Dr Christoph Pfrommer at the Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics Potsdam (AIP) and the University of Potsdam.

Today, the European Southern Observatory ESO has signed an agreement with a large international consortium for the design and construction of the Multi-Object Spectrograph (MOSAIC), an instrument for the Extremely Large Telescope (ELT). On what will be the world's largest optical telescope, MOSAIC will simultaneaously measure the light from hundreds of astronomical sources and by that trace the growth of galaxies and the distribution of matter from the Big Bang to the present day. As a consortium member, the Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics Potsdam (AIP) is responsible for part of the technical development of MOSAIC, as well as for preparing its scientific use.

Scientists have captured an exceptionally rare, high-resolution view of an active region that produced two powerful X-class solar flares—an achievement rarely possible from Earth. Using the GREGOR solar telescope in Tenerife, researchers recorded the explosive activity of the Sun’s most energetic sunspot group of 2025, revealing twisted magnetic structures and the early stages of flare ignition with unprecedented detail. The flares triggered fast coronal mass ejections that lit up Earth’s skies with vivid auroras in the nights that followed.

At the next virtual Babelsberg Starry Night of the Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics Potsdam (AIP), Dr Daniel Sablowski follows a photon on its cosmic odyssey. The video will be broadcast on the YouTube channel ‘Urknall, Weltall und das Leben’ (Big Bang, Universe and Life) from 20 November 2025.

In November 2025, Jean-Michel Désert became head of the ‘Exoplanets and their Atmospheres’ section at AIP. His research focuses on determining the climates and atmospheric chemical compositions of distant worlds to uncover clues about planet formation and the potential habitability of exoplanets.

When galaxy clusters collide, huge shock waves are sent out. These energise electrons, giving rise to so-called ‘radio relics’ – vast structures that emit radio waves. Using computer simulations, a research team lead by the Leibniz-Institute for Astrophysics Potsdam (AIP) has solved several long-standing problems that previously challenged our understanding of these phenomena.

In the dark season, the Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics Potsdam (AIP) is once again inviting visitors to the popular Babelsberg Starry Nights. This event series is aimed at anyone interested in astronomy, regardless of prior knowledge. Researchers from the AIP will report on current topics and interesting projects from the world of astrophysics. On Tuesday, 18 November, Dr Axel Schwope will speak on ‘Cosmic Clocks’ – in German.

An international team of astronomers including scientists from the Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics Potsdam (AIP) unexpectedly discovered a faint Planetary Nebula in the young star cluster NGC 1866 in the Large Magellanic Cloud.

An international team of researchers, led by the Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics Potsdam (AIP), has shed light on a decades-long debate about why galaxies rotate faster than expected, and whether this behaviour is caused by unseen dark matter or a breakdown of gravity on cosmic scales.

On Thursday, 23 October, Prof. Matthias Steinmetz will talk about the large-scale instrument project 4MOST – the 4-metre Multi-Object Spectroscopic Telescope – in the next virtual Babelsberg Starry Night. The video will be broadcast on the YouTube channel ‘Urknall, Weltall und das Leben’ at 8 p.m.

On October 18, 2025, the 4-metre Multi-Object Spectroscopic Telescope (4MOST) facility, installed on the VISTA telescope at the European Southern Observatory’s (ESO) Paranal Observatory in Chile, obtained its first light - it is now ready to begin its scientific journey. Moreover, 4MOST does not simply take images of the sky; it records spectra, capturing the light of each object in every individual colour. With this capability, it can unravel the light of 2400 celestial objects simultaneously into 18,000 colour components, allowing astronomers to study their detailed chemical composition and properties.

New research shows that dark matter has a different distribution in our galaxy than previously thought and that advances dark matter’s status as potential source of the observed gamma ray excess in the Milky Way’s center. High-resolution simulations reveal that the dark matter distribution in the inner galaxy is not spherical, but flattened and asymmetrical. The findings confirm the theory that the gamma ray excess is due to dark matter annihilation.

In the dark season, the Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics Potsdam (AIP) is once again inviting visitors to the popular Babelsberg Starry Nights at its research campus. The next lecture will take place on Tuesday, 14 October 2025, at 7:15 p.m.

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.

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).

At the next virtual Babelsberg Starry Night of the Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics Potsdam (AIP), Dr Marcel Pawlowski answers questions about his lectures on satellite galaxies and MOND – alternative theories of gravity. The video will be broadcast on the YouTube channel ‘Urknall, Weltall und das Leben’ (Big Bang, Universe and Life) from 18 September 2025.

The Alexander von Humboldt Foundation has awarded the prestigious Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel Research Award to Dr. Alexis Rouillard, researcher at the Astrophysics and Planetology Research Institute in Toulouse to deepen his research on solar winds at AIP.

The Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics Potsdam (AIP) will once again take part at the nationwide Long Night of Astronomy on 13 September 2025.