Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research
The research focus of the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research is our cosmic neighborhood: the solar system with its planets and moons, comets and asteroids as well as the sun. The aim of the scientists is to describe the processes in the solar system in models and to simulate them on the computer. In addition, instruments are being developed and built to study these bodies from space. The Institute is involved in numerous space missions.
ERC Synergy Grant for research project REVEAL
In the search for life-friendly exoplanets, researchers from Germany, the UK and the USA join forces in a pioneering research project. The European Research Council will support the project REVEAL (Revealing Signatures of Habitable Worlds Hidden by Stellat Activity) with an ERC Synergy Grant.
Small-scale magnetism leads to large-scale solar atmosphere
Thanks to close-up images of the Sun obtained during Solar Orbiter’s perihelion passage of October 2022, solar physicists have seen how fleeting magnetic fields at the solar surface build up into the solar atmosphere. A team of researchers led by the MPS reports on these findings in the journal Astrophysical Journal Letters.
A stereo view of the Sun’s magnetic field
Two space probes see more than one - especially when they look at their research object from two different directions as is the case for ESA’s Solar Orbiter and NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory. A team of scientists led by the MPS has now succeeded in combining observational data from both spacecraft from March of last year in such a way that the magnetic field at the visible surface of the Sun can be unambiguously determined for the first time.
International Awards for
Yuto Bekki
Dr. Yuto Bekki of the MPS received awards from two international associations of professional astronomers. He received the Patricia Edwin PhD Thesis Prize from the Solar Physics Division of the European Physical Society and an honorable mention from the Sun and Heliosphere Division of the International Astronomical Union. Using a suite of computer simulations, which he developed from scratch, the young researcher characterized a class of long period oscillations.
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The US-based Geochemical Society and the European Association of Geochemistry have awarded Prof. Dr. Thorsten Kleine, Director at the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research (MPS) in Göttingen (Germany), the title “Geochemistry Fellow”. The ...
They want to develop a new mathematical language, research the regenerative abilities of the axolotl brain, are looking for habitable worlds outside our solar system and are working on transmitting scents via the internet. This year's ERC Synergy ...
One of the biggest obstacles in the search for exoplanets similar to Earth are their stars. The brightness and wavelengths of the light emitted by a star may vary greatly thus making it difficult for even the most advanced telescopes to detect ...
Dr. Erhard Kirsch, former scientist at the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research, passed away on 12 September, 2023 at the age of 89.