Code of Conduct
Scientific Highlights
Nature letter on RR Lyrae stars as distance indicators
5 April 2012. Astronomers find a new type of variable star in a double star system.
When Dark Energy turned on
30 March 2012. The Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS-III) today announced the most accurate measurements yet of the distances to galaxies in the faraway universe, giving an unprecedented look at the time when the universe first began to accelerate. From different perspectives six publications, which have been published online now, address the question of “Dark Energy“, the unknown force that drives our Universe apart.
Gaseous ring around young star raises questions
18 January 2012. Astronomers have detected a mysterious ring of carbon monoxide gas around the young star V1052 Cen, which is about 700 light years away in the southern constellation Centaurus. The ring is part of the star’s planet-forming disk, and it’s as far from V1052 Cen as Earth is from the sun. Discovered with the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope, its edges are uniquely crisp.
Innovative optical filters enable new astronomical observations
7 December 2011. In the current issue of "Nature Communications" from Dec 06, 2011 physical chemists at University Potsdam and astrophysicists at the Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics Potsdam (AIP) in collaboration with colleagues from Sydney / Australia describe their latest results obtained within the ASPIC consortium (Astrophotonics and Instrumentation Consortium): a complex multi-notch optical filter that allows for observations of faint stars and galaxies by suppression of bright infrared night sky.
Closer to the Sun than ever
5 October 2011. Scientists in Potsdam are preparing for the start of ESA’s “Solar Orbiter” mission
Two new brown dwarf Solar neighbours discovered
14 July 2011
400 years of research in sunspots
21 June 2011 - The first scientific article about sunspots was published 400 years ago on 23 June 1611. Scientists of the Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics Potsdam (AIP) and the University Oulu in Finland are now reconstructing tens of thousands of sunspots: the solar activity over four centuries. Looking back on history, they also want to understand better the future of the activity of the Sun.
SPINSTARS: the first polluters of the Universe?
27 April 2011. Astrophysicists find imprints of fast rotating massive stars in the bulge of our galaxy
New conditions for life on other planets
24 February 2011. Tidal effects change the concept of the habitable zone
A small snack for the Milky Way
02 February 2011. Astrophysicists find new remnants of a neighbouring galaxy in our own galaxy.
Astronomers Release the Largest Color Image of the Sky Ever Made (press release by the SDSS collaboration)
11 January 2011.
