News at MPA

During the MPA garden party, the Rudolf-Kippenhahn-Prize for the best scientific paper written in the past year by a student at the Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics was awarded to two students: Silvia Almada Monter for “Crossing walls and windows: the curious escape of Lyman-α photons through ionized channels” and Christian Partmann for “The importance of nuclear star clusters for massive black hole growth and nuclear star formation in simulated low-mass galaxies”. The prize is awarded to recognize originality, a large impact on science but also the quality of writing for a publication to which students themselves made substantial contributions. more

In the first study of its kind, researchers at the RIKEN Center for Interdisciplinary Theoretical and Mathematical Sciences (iTHEMS) in Japan, together with colleagues from the Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics (MPA) and the Flatiron Institute, used machine learning — a form of artificial intelligence — to significantly speed up the processing time to simulate the evolution of galaxies coupled with supernova explosions. This approach could help us to understand the origins of our own galaxy and, in particular, the elements essential for life in the Milky Way. more

The first images from the observatory will be published on 23 June 2025 at 17:00 CEST. Researchers from the Max Planck Society report on their planned research more

Astronomical images not only look beautiful, they also provide a wealth of information. What's behind it and what distinguishes four prominent telescopes? An overview. more

Computer simulations suggest that the amplification of magnetic fields in stellar collisions may play an important role in the formation of a particular subset of stars in clusters. Blue straggler stars in clusters appear not only bluer, but also younger than other cluster members. One proposed explanation for their apparently different ages is that they are the result of stellar collisions. However, this would require the resulting star to spin down efficiently without losing too much mass. Scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics have now shown, using sophisticated 3D simulations, that the energy of the magnetic field is greatly amplified in the collisions of low-mass stars, providing a potentially efficient spin-down mechanism. more

The Fred Young Submillimeter Telescope is now ready to be assembled at its destination in the Atacama Desert. Planned to take up operations in April 2026, it will be able to look all the way back to the Big Bang, revealing new details about star and galaxy formation.
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Data from the Esa Euclid telescope enable precise analysis of an Einstein ring around the galaxy core of NGC 6505 and thus the surrounding dark matter more