News at MPA

The Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics (MPA) is proud to announce that Dr. Max Gronke, leader of the Max Planck Research Group 'Multiphase Gas', has been awarded a highly competitive European Research Council (ERC) Starting Grant. This prestigious grant will fund Dr. Gronke's innovative research project "Resolving the Multiscale, Multiphase Universe" (ReMMU) over the next five years. more

Valeriya Korol, a postdoctoral fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics (MPA), has been selected to join the LISA Science Team to help ESA shape the scientific potential of its flagship and first-of-its-kind gravitational-wave mission, the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA). She is the only early career scientist to be selected for the panel. more

MPA researcher proposes a new idea to detect pairs of the biggest black holes, which occupies the centres of galaxies, by analysing gravitational waves from nearby small black holes, which are the remnants of stars. This approach, now published in Nature Astronomy, which will require a deci-Hz gravitational-wave detector, would enable studying supermassive black hole binaries, which might remain inaccessible otherwise.
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Former MPA PhD student Oliver Zier received one of the Otto Hahn Medals this year at the Max Planck Society's annual assembly in Berlin. The prize is awarded for the development of novel numerical techniques that allow the accurate simulation of rotationally supported, cold, magnetized astrophysical disks. more

Observations of a newly discovered binary star system combined with advanced models of stellar collapse have provided key insights into the formation of stellar mass black holes. A team of international researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics and the Niels Bohr Institute (NBI), University of Copenhagen, conclude that massive black holes can form without a bright supernova explosion. The energy from the collapse is carried away mainly by lightweight neutrino particles with only small asymmetry, leading to a small natal kick for the black hole. more

End of April, the STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Agriculture, and Mathematics) festival took place at Kyambogo University in Uganda. One of the highlights: the mobile planetarium set up by Benard Nsamba, head of the MPA partner group and Branco Weiss fellow. more

By Charles (Chuck) Steidel, California Institute of Technology (Caltech) in Pasadena, California more