Using data from the RAVE survey, a large observation project initiated and led by the Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics Potsdam (AIP), an international team of astronomers has produced new maps of the material between the stars in the Milky Way that should move astronomers closer to cracking a stardust puzzle that has vexed them for nearly a century.

The Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics Potsdam (AIP) hosts its 11th Thinkshop under the title "Satellite galaxies and dwarfs in the local group“. From August 25 to 29 over 130 scientists will get together on the Potsdam Telegrafenberg to discuss their research in the field of cosmology.

Building on 14 years of extraordinary discoveries, the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) has launched a major program of three new surveys, adding novel capabilities to expand its census of the Universe into regions it had been unable to explore before.

Today Prof. R. Brent Tully from the Institute for Astronomy Honolulu, Hawaii receives the Wempe Award in recognition of his groundbreaking research about the structure of galaxies and the large-scale structure of the cosmos.

The CosmoSim database (www.cosmosim.org) has now been released after an intensive testing period. This service to the scientific community is the successor of the MultiDark database (www.multidark.org) and it is used as a platform for publishing and sharing data products from cosmological simulations.

Using ESA’s X-ray telescope XMM-Newton a team of Potsdam astronomers together with collegues from Belgium and the USA have found X-ray pulsations of a unique star. It is a celestial wonder with a body of a normal star but with the magnetic field much stronger than normal. The race is now on to understand why it behaves in this way.

For Girls'Day / Future Day Brandenburg, the AIP invited a good twenty girls from Brandenburg and Berlin to take a look at the world of astrophysics.

Noam Libeskind, scientist of the Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics Potsdam (AIP), explains in an article in the latest issue of “Scientific American”, why dwarf galaxies (also called “satellite galaxies”) are arranged on a plane instead of being scattered randomly. Superhighways of Dark Matter might be the solution to this astronomic puzzle.

A team of scientists headed by Ivan Minchev from the Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics Potsdam (AIP) has found a way to reconstruct the evolutionary history of our galaxy, the Milky Way, to a new level of detail.

The Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities (Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften - BBAW) has elected Matthias Steinmetz, Director of the Leibniz Institute Potsdam (AIP), as a full member of the Academy. To be appointed, scientists must distinguish themselves through outstanding scientific achievements.

Two high performance instruments from Potsdam-Babelsberg arrived at the Large Binocular Telescope (LBT) in Arizona, the largest reflector telescope in the world. The so-called PFUs (Permanent Fibre Units) provide both telescope control and the transmission of starlight collected via the telescope mirror to the spectrograph PEPSI (“Potsdam Echelle Polarimetric and Spectroscopic Instrument”).

For successfully bridging the gap between astronomy as a hobby and the world of science, Axel Schwope of the Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics Potsdam has been acknowledged.

Astronomers have discovered that our Galaxy wobbles. An international team of astronomers around Mary Williams from the Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics Potsdam (AIP) detected and examined this phenomenon with the RAdial Velocity Experiment (RAVE), a survey of almost half a million stars around the Sun. In addition to the regular Galactic rotation the scientists found the Milky Way moving perpendicular to the Galactic plane.

Physicians and astrophysicists work on a new diagnostic method.

Horst Künzel died aged 92 on 2013 September 20. His professional and scientific career was exceptional.

The Karl-Schwarzschild Medal, one of the most honoured awards for astronomical research, goes to Karl-Heinz Rädler, scientist at at the Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics Potsdam (AIP). The Astronomische Gesellschaft (Astronomical Society) honours him for his research in the area of magnetohydrodynamic.

A new book by Günther Rüdiger, scientist at the Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics Potsdam (AIP), and his two colleagues Leonod L. Kitchatinov and Rainer Hollerbach explores magnetic effects in cosmic objects.

The Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics Potsdam (AIP) received the certificate from “berufundfamilie gGmbH”. The award highlights the efforts of AIP as a family-friendly employer in Brandenburg.