Teresa Braun and Aniket Bhagwat awarded the 2026 Kippenhahn Prize
On 8 July, the Max-Planck-Institut für Astrophysik (MPA) honoure two outstanding early-career researchers, Teresa Braun and Aniket Bhagwat, with the Kippenhahn Prize for groundbreaking papers that have significantly advanced our understanding of the Sun and the early universe. The prize, which was established to promote excellence in scientific writing and original thinking, recognizes not only the depth of their discoveries but also the clarity and rigor of their presentation.
The job of the Kippenhahn Prize committee this year was not easy due to the quality of the submissions. After many discussions, the committee decided to award two young scientists for their originality, scientific depth, and exceptional clarity of presentation. The award-winning papers go from our nearest star, the Sun, to “stuff that is really far away”.
A New Standard for the Sun’s Interior
Teresa Braun’s award-winning paper, “Testing the 3-equation Kuhfuss convection model using the Sun”, marks a significant step forward in solar modeling. For years, solar physicists have struggled to reconcile theoretical predictions with precise helioseismic measurements, particularly in the Sun’s outer layers. Teresa broke through this long-standing challenge by applying the Reynolds stress-based Kuhfuss convection model – previously used only in stellar cores – to the Sun’s convective envelope, a far more complex and numerically demanding regime.
Despite nearly abandoning the project due to severe computational hurdles, Teresa’s persistence and ingenuity led to a fully calibrated solar model computed throughout its evolution using this advanced theory. The result is a very accurate solar model, showing unprecedented agreement with the Sun’s sound speed profile and a dramatic improvement in the prediction of high-frequency pressure modes – effectively resolving the long-standing “surface effect” problem. Her meticulous analysis also pinpointed the remaining discrepancies to non-local closure relations in the model, opening new pathways for future refinement. Already, her work has been requested as a foundational 1D model for the ambitious Whole Sun Project, aiming to simulate the Sun in full 3D. With the paper written almost single-handedly, Teresa’s work stands out.
Solving the JWST Lyα Puzzle
Aniket Bhagwat’s prize-winning paper, “Lyα with SPICE: interpreting Lyα emission at z > 5”, provides a compelling physical explanation for a major puzzle in early-universe astrophysics: why JWST observations of Lyman-alpha emitting galaxies during the Epoch of Reionization often show weaker emission than expected from earlier ground-based data. Aniket’s insight emerged from close collaboration with observational astronomers and led him to investigate whether instrumental systematics – differences in slit losses between ground-based and JWST observations – could be responsible.
Using his own SPICE suite of radiation-hydrodynamic simulations, Aniket generated realistic mock JWST observations and discovered that more than 70% of massive galaxies (above 100 million solar masses) exhibit significant spatial offsets between their Lyα emission and UV light. When combined with the diffuse halos produced by resonant scattering, these offsets lead to substantial flux losses in slit-based spectroscopy – precisely the kind of measurement bias that could explain the observed discrepancy. His work not only resolves a critical tension in the data but also makes clear, testable predictions that have since been confirmed by follow-up observations. Beyond its immediate impact, Aniket’s paper has reshaped how the astrophysics community interprets Lyα as a probe of cosmic reionization, emphasizing the need to account for both galaxy-scale physics and observational biases. His work has already inspired new proposals for JWST and ALMA, cementing its role as a cornerstone in the study of the early universe.
