In their search for habitable worlds, astronomers have started to consider exomoons, or those likely orbiting planets outside the solar system. In a new study, a pair of researchers has found that exomoons are just as likely to support life as exoplanets.

For the first time, astronomers have detected the magnetic field of a starspot.

The University of Potsdam awards Dr Andreas Schulze with this year's Michelson prize. Schulze worked on his thesis about "Demographics of Supermassive Black Holes" at the Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics Potsdam (AIP).

The Calar Alto Legacy Integral Field Area survey (CALIFA survey) announces today its first public release of data, offering an unprecedentedly detailed view of 100 galaxies in the local universe with ample opportunities for scientific study.

Dr Ulrich Müller is the new administrative chairman of AIP.

The 2012 Johann Wempe Award is awarded to Prof. Dr. Thomas R. Ayres from the Center for Astrophysics and Space Astronomy of the University of Colorado, Boulder, U.S.A. for his contributions to ultraviolet stellar spectroscopy and his detection of COmospheres.

Analysing data from NASA's Spitzer and Hubble Space Telescopes an international team of astronomers around Tanya Urrutia from AIP has caught sight of luminous quasars igniting after galaxies collide. Quasars are bright, energetic regions around giant, active black holes in galactic centers.

How can we use new photonic technologies to promote astronomy? That is the main question of this year’s Summer School, which will be held in Schloss Wiesenburg in Brandenburg. It is the first conference worldwide to promote the issue of astrophotonics: the application of photonics to astronomy.

Cecilia Scannapieco, currently working at the Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics Potsdam (AIP), is awarded with the Ludwig Biermann Award of the Astronomische Gesellschaft (AG). The award ceremony takes place in Hamburg on September 25, 2012.

Astronomers in Germany have developed an artificial intelligence algorithm to help them chart and explain the structure and dynamics of the universe around us. The team, led by Francisco Kitaura of the Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics in Potsdam, report their results in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.

The Committee on Small Body Nomenclature of the International Astronomical Union (IAU) has decided that the main-belt Asteroid 278513 is from now on called "Schwope".

About one hundred scientists from all over the world participate in the 9th Thinkshop of the AIP: "Galaxy surveys using Integral Field Spectroscopy; achievements and opportunities".

Dr. Federico Spada is awarded with the Karl Schwarzschild Fellowship 2012.

Spectroscopic imaging of the corona based on new-technology equipment - LOFAR (the LOw Frequency ARray) and solar applications.

Start-up management seminar: final results presentation.

Scientists have proved the existence of a magnetic effect that could explain why solar-like stars spin very slowly at the end of their lifetime.

The proposal "The Small Scale Structure of the Universe" for Supercomputer Time by Stefan Gottlöber from AIP was now highlighted as Excellence Project 2012 by the John von Neumann Institute for Computing. The proposal is part of the CLUES - Constrained Local UniversE Simulations - project.

After ten years of development, the new German solar telescope GREGOR will start operating at the Spanish Observatorio del Teide of the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias on Tenerife. It is the largest solar telescope in Europe and number three worldwide. It will provide the German and the international community of solar physicists with new and better instrumentation which will enable them to investigate our home star in unprecedented detail.

Meetu Verma is honored with the Publication Award for young scientists awarded on 10 May 2012 by the 16th Leibniz Kolleg Potsdam. She earned it for three publications about velocity fields on the surface of the sun, which were published in the referred journals Astronomy & Astrophysics and Astronomical Notes.