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Scientific Highlights
Protective layer: Magnetic field of the Jellyfish galaxy JO206
26 October 2020. Gas tails give them their jellyfish-like appearance: So-called jellyfish galaxies are difficult to study because of their low brightness. An international research team has now gained new insights into the physical conditions prevailing in the gas tail of these galaxies.
New study verifies prediction from Einstein's General Theory of Relativity
23 October 2020. An international research team has used observational data and simulations to determine the redshift in the Sun's gravitational field with unprecedented accuracy. This effect, predicted by Einstein, was the reason for constructing a solar telescope at the beginning of the 1920s, capable of measuring the spectrum of the Sun: the Einstein Tower in Potsdam.
Historical Sky: Half a century of Potsdam solar research digitally accessible
23 September 2020. As part of the large-scale digitization project APPLAUSE, digitized photographic plates have recently become available online, with images of the sun taken between 1943 and 1991 at the Einstein Tower Solar Observatory in Potsdam.
Cosmic dance: A solution to the Galactic bar paradox
25 August 2020. The very heart of our Milky Way harbours a large bar-like structure of stars whose size and rotational speed have been strongly contested in the last years. A new study has found an elegant solution to the discrepancies found in different observational studies, using the fact that the bar and spiral arms move at different rotational velocities, encountering each other about every 80 Million years. As the faster-rotating bar approaches a spiral arm, it appears to be much longer and their ongoing mutual attraction due to gravity periodically varies both their rotational speeds.
Mysterious dimming of Betelgeuse: Dust clearing up
13 August 2020. Between October 2019 and February 2020 the brightness of the star Betelgeuse has dropped by more than a factor of three. New observations by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope and the robotic STELLA telescope of the Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics Potsdam (AIP) now provide an explanation for the phenomenon.
The ultimate RAVE: final data release published
27 July 2020. How do the stars in our Milky Way move? For more than a decade RAVE, one of the first and largest systematic spectroscopic surveys, studied the motion of Milky Way stars. The RAVE collaboration now published the results for over half a million observations in its 6th and final data release. RAVE succeeded in measuring the velocities, temperatures, compositions and distances for different types of stars. The unique database enables scientists to systematically disentangle the structure and evolution history of our Galaxy.
First images of the Sun from Solar Orbiter
16 July 2020. Solar Orbiter, a mission of the space agencies ESA and NASA, publishes for the first time images that show our home star as close as never before. Prior to this, the test phase of all instruments was successfully completed.
The X-ray sky in its full glory
19 June 2020. The eROSITA space telescope has provided a new, sharp 360° view of the hot and energetic processes across the Universe. The new map contains more than one million objects, roughly doubling the number of known X-ray sources discovered over the 60-year history of X-ray astronomy. Scientists at the Leibniz Institute of Astrophysics Potsdam (AIP) have contributed with the discovery of a circular structure caused by a black hole outburst 10,000 years ago.
Four newborn exoplanets get cooked by their sun
11 June 2020. Scientists from the Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics Potsdam (AIP) examined the fate of the young star V1298 Tau and its four orbiting exoplanets. The results show that these recently born planets are roasted by the intense X-ray radiation of their young sun, which leads to the vaporisation of the gaseous envelope of these planets. The innermost planets could be evaporated down to their rocky cores, so that there is no atmosphere left.
Total lunar eclipse: observing the Earth as a transiting planet
2 March 2020. Astronomers succeeded in recording sunlight shining through the Earth’s atmosphere in a manner similar to the study of distant exoplanets. During the extraordinary occasion of a lunar eclipse, the Large Binocular Telescope observed the light that was filtered by the Earth’s atmosphere and reflected by the Moon in unique detail. In addition to oxygen and water, atomic spectral lines of sodium, calcium and potassium were detected in our atmosphere in this way first time.
Towards the Sun
– Update 11 February 2020 – In the early morning hours of 10 February, the Solar Orbiter space probe started its journey into space. The mission of the European Space Agency (ESA) will explore the Sun at close range. On board is the X-ray telescope STIX, which was developed and built with involvement from the Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics Potsdam (AIP).
Sun under double observation
– Update 29 January 2020 – At the end of January, NASA's space probe "Parker Solar Probe" is approaching the Sun for the fourth time, this time up to a distance of only 28 solar radii. Never before has a spacecraft been so close to our home star. An international project under the auspices of the Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics Potsdam (AIP) adds ground-based measurements at the same time – enabling completely new insights into solar activity and its effects on Earth.
X-ray eye in space celebrates 20 years
20 January 2020. At the beginning of the millennium, the European Space Agency's XMM-Newton space telescope started observing the X-ray sky. On the occasion of its 20th anniversary, scientists, including those at the Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics Potsdam (AIP), are now publishing new catalogues of all X-ray sources discovered with XMM-Newton.
Of harps, Christmas trees, a wandering star and the mysterious streams of cosmic rays
19 December 2019. Researchers at the Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics in Potsdam (AIP), and the Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics in Garching (MPA), have investigated galactic radio objects that adopt shapes such as Christmas trees and harps. With the help of these objects, the old question of how cosmic radiation propagates could be answered.
Three supermassive black holes discovered at the core of one galaxy
21 November 2019. An international research team led by scientists from Göttingen and Potsdam have for the first time shown that the galaxy NGC 6240 contains three supermassive black holes. The unique observations, published in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics, reveal the black holes close to each other in the core of the galaxy. The study points to simultaneous merging processes during the formation of the largest galaxies in the universe.
An overlooked piece of the solar dynamo puzzle
28 October 2019. A previously unobserved mechanism is at work in the Sun’s rotating plasma: a magnetic instability, which scientists had thought was physically impossible under these conditions. The effect might even play a crucial role in the formation of the Sun’s magnetic field, say researchers from Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR), the University of Leeds and the Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics Potsdam (AIP).
eROSITA – first glimpse into the hot universe
22 October 2019. The German space telescope eROSITA has now published the first astounding images of the hot universe. With all seven “X-ray eyes” it targeted a rare neutron star, the Large Magellanic Cloud and interacting galaxy clusters.
A new, spectacular view of the Large Magellanic Cloud
13 September 2019. The VISTA survey of the Magellanic Clouds, led by Maria-Rosa Cioni of the Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics Potsdam (AIP), reveals a remarkable new image of the Large Magellanic Cloud. The telescope, part of ESO’s Paranal observatory, has been surveying this galaxy and its sibling, the Small Magellanic Cloud, as well as their surroundings, in unprecedented detail for the last decade.
Chemical element potassium detected in an exoplanet atmosphere
4 September 2019. A team of astronomers led by AIP PhD student Engin Keles detected the chemical element potassium in the atmosphere of an exoplanet, for the first time with overwhelming significance and applying high-resolution spectroscopy. The Potsdam Echelle Polarimetric and Spectroscopic Instrument (PEPSI) at the Large Binocular Telescope (LBT) in Arizona was used to study the atmosphere on the Jupiter-like exoplanet HD189733b.
New 3D view of the Milky Way reveals the central Galactic bar
16 July 2019. By combining the results from ESA’s Gaia mission’s second data release (DR2) with complementary observations, scientists under the leadership of the Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics Potsdam (AIP) and the University of Barcelona present a map of our Milky Way that shows the central bar structure.
