Face to face with solar telescopes, meteorites and exoplanets

For the 6th Night of Science on June 21st, 2025, the MPS is offering a full program of hands-on activities, lectures, guided tours, and unique exhibits.

A long summer night brimming with information and activities devoted to space research and exploration awaits quests during the 6th Night of Science in Göttingen on Saturday, June 21st, 2025, from 5 PM until midnight. Lectures, guided tours, experiments, and unique exhibits offer the opportunity to learn about current research results and space missions, as well as to get to know the institute's laboratories, clean rooms, and workshops. Especially for children, there is much to explore: a children’s lecture devoted to Mars as well as many hands-on activities. Food and drinks will be available in front of the institute.

Touching rocks from space; getting up close to a vast solar telescope that has studied our star from a stratospheric balloon; “flying” through the Sun's coronal loops with the help of VR glasses; and “discovering” exoplanets in an experiment. These are just some of the highlights that the MPS has to offer during the Night of Science. In the institute’s large entrance hall, visitors will find all scientific stands and activities. There, scientists and engineers will provide information on space missions to Jupiter, Mercury, and the Sun, demonstrate space hardware, explain what the Sun's vibrations reveal about its interior, and show how our star can be simulated on a computer. There will also be insights into how and under what conditions the scientific and technical teams at MPS develop, build, and test instruments for use in space.

A peek at laboratories and workshops

Guided tours offer another opportunity to learn about the work carried out in the institute's laboratories. The tours, which last around an hour, take visitors behind the scenes to clean rooms, test facilities, and laboratories. Prior registration is mandatory. The penultimate tour of the evening at 10:30 p.m. will be in English; the last tour at 10:50 p.m. in Spanish.
Those interested in technology and large machinery are also invited to visit the institute's precision engineering workshop. This is where high-precision components for space research are manufactured. Some of these components are currently on Mars or flying through space aboard space probes. The precision engineers will offer insights into their work and equipment and provide information about the apprenticeships available at the MPS.

Space activities for kids

Young space enthusiasts will find lots of fun hands-on experiments: they can, among other things, try out how Jupiter’s giant hurricane is formed, discover what heating plates and silicone oil have in common with the Sun’s bubbling surface, learn what vibrating plates covered with sand teach us about the Sun and how researchers discover exoplanets orbiting distant stars. In addition, the institute's PhD students have put together their own children's program titled “Weltraum zum Staunen und Mitmachen” featuring a space walk, shows, and much more. The children's lecture at 5 p.m. in the institute's auditorium will explore how researchers unlock the secrets of Mars.

Lectures and more

The other lectures in the auditorium are aimed at adults. Every hour, researchers will provide easy-to-understand and entertaining insights into current research topics. These include the balloon-borne solar observatory Sunrise III, which studied the Sun from the stratosphere last year; the age of the Moon; and the search for planets orbiting distant stars. No registration is required for the lectures, but space in the auditorium is limited.

On the second floor of the institute, visitors can enjoy an astrophotography exhibition with amateur telescopes to try out, as well as a screening of the film “Sunrise – At the Limits of Feasibility” by the Göttingen filmmakers Johannes Kohout and Janek Totaro.

In addition, the Max Planck Institute for Multidisciplinary Sciences and the Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organization will offer insights into their research with stands, activities, and lectures at the MPS.

Food and drinks will be available in front of the institute. For children, there will be a bouncy castle and face painting with space motifs.

Program booklet on the internet

An overview of the complete program offered by the MPS for the Night of Science is available in the printed program booklet, which can be found at many locations throughout Göttingen, as well as online at: https://www.goettinger-nacht-des-wissens.de/
Here you will find the complete program at the MPS. (Select “Nach Einrichtungen” in the top menu bar, then ‘M’ and then “Max Planck Institut für Sonnensystemforschung”).
We recommend taking bus line 1 to get to the Night of Science at the MPS. (See https://www.goettinger-nacht-des-wissens.de at the bottom of the page.) Get off at Tammannstraße or Kellnerweg.