Projects and Missions

The PLATO space mission aims at searching and characterizing terrestrial exoplanets, including those in the habitable zones of Sun-like stars. This mission will generate a vast amount of data on planetary systems. The Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research in Göttingen is leading the effort to develop and operate the PLATO Data Center (PDC) which will support the calibration and validation of PLATO observations on the ground and generate high-level scientific data products. Program: ESA Cosmic Vision (M3).

The Photospheric Magnetic Imager (PMI) has been selected as a crucial instrument for ESA's Vigil mission, an operational component of the agency's Space Safety programme dedicated to space weather. Much like the Solar Orbiter's PHI instrument, PMI will generate vector maps of the Sun's photospheric magnetic field. Given Vigil's operational nature, a significant focus is being placed on developing a reliable, low-latency on-board processing pipeline for the PMI data. PROGRAM: ESA:VIGIL  

Despite decades of research, key questions about the Sun’s magnetic cycle, hot atmosphere, and internal dynamics remain unresolved, largely because internal and external solar physics have been treated separately. The Whole Sun project seeks to bridge internal and external solar physics to uncover how magnetic fields, convection, and rotation shape the Sun’s dynamics. Through advanced simulations and exascale computing, the project aims to build a unified model of our star and extend this understanding to Sun-like stars. 

The Inertial Mode project presents groundbreaking observations of the Sun's inertial modes, a class of toroidal oscillations driven by the Coriolis force. Through comparison with theoretical models, we have successfully identified these specific modes, including high-latitude and critical-latitude inertial modes, and equatorial Rossby modes. This pioneering work in inertial-mode helioseismology allows us to constrain crucial properties like superadiabaticity and turbulent viscosity in the Sun's deep convection zone.

The "Butterfly" project, in collaboration with the Makutu group (Inria), aims to extend the Sun’s magnetic “butterfly diagram” to other stars. It develops computational tools to map stellar magnetic activity from light curves, whose variations also encode seismic signals. Through advanced simulations, the project will infer how these magnetic features are distributed in latitude on Sun-like stars. Program: This project is funded the French National Research Agency (ANR) and the German Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG).  

 

Building on more than two decades of solar oscillation data, the project aims to map internal flow velocities within the Sun. Through helioseismic holography and other inverse methods, these analyses will shed new light on the 11-year magnetic cycle and improve forecasts of space weather.

The German Data Center for the Solar Dynamics Observatory (GDC-SDO) manages an enormous volume of data. This is a long-term commitment that commenced 1st August 2007. The GDC-SDO is hosted by the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research. The data are predominantly used to learn about solar magnetic activity, and it is made available from the Joint Science Operations Center (JSOC), headquartered at Stanford University in the USA. Program: The German Aerospace Center (DLR) provides support for this operation.

Solar Orbiter is a High-Resolution Mission to the Sun and Inner Heliosphere. It is dedicated to studying the Sun and the inner heliosphere in greater detail. The Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research (MPS) contributions to the mission include developing the Polarimetric and Helioseismic Imager (PHI), one of ten instruments on board. PHI will collect data of the Sun’s magnetic field, surface motion, and light intensity in the visible spectrum. This work supports the Solar Orbiter mission’s broader objective of improving our understanding of the solar atmosphere and the largely unexplored inner regions of the heliosphere. Program: ESA Cosmic Vision (M2).

The Max Planck-Humboldt Research Unit, led by Benard Nsamba, is an international collaboration between the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research (MPS) and Kyambogo University in Uganda. This Unit focuses on exploring stellar interior physics of solar-type stars using asteroseismic techniques to investigate the impact of stellar model physics on stellar parameters.  In addition, the group promotes the acceleration and development of astrophysics research in Uganda.

This is a collaborative initiative between the Max Planck Society, represented by the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research (MPS, lead MPG partner) and the Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics (MPA)—and the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR, lead Asian partner) in India. The collaboration seeks to harness advanced machine learning techniques to analyze stellar oscillation data of giant, intermediate-mass, and massive stars from NASA’s ongoing TESS mission and the upcoming ESA PLATO (PLAnetary Transits and Oscillations of stars) mission, thereby deepening our understanding of stellar physics through asteroseismology.

The Stellar and Interiors Department at the Max-Planck Institute for Solar System Research is partnering with Dr. Jordan Philibet to improve theoretical modeling of the Sun's inertial modes. The collaboration will also focus on developing new techniques to use solar inertial mode data to constrain the dynamical and thermal properties of the Sun's convective zone. Additionally, this cooperative effort will involve joint work to validate the stellar analysis pipeline for the upcoming ESA PLATO mission.

The International Space Science Institute (ISSI) Team:  “Global Inertial Modes: Bridging Solar and Stellar Physics”
unites key researchers from both the solar and stellar communities to exchange expertise and advance joint research on inertial modes. This collaboration aims to use these modes as a tool to better understand stellar interiors, rotation, and magnetic activity, particularly by gaining new insights into the nature of convection within the Sun and other stars.