Solar physics

The longest-serving solar observatory in space has turned 25 and is still making significant contributions to solar research. Its old age has become an important merit. more

Starspot regions occurring preferentially in large clusters could be the cause of the strong brightness fluctuations of solar-like stars. more

Since December 2019, solar activity has been on the up. This is consistent with predictions, to which MPS researchers contributed. more

The MPS is one of the leading institutes worldwide in building instruments for solar research, both for ground based observatories as well as for balloon and space-borne missions. Scientists and engineers of MPS conceive new observing methods and develop novel instruments of highest technological complexity. These instruments are built in house, tested, calibrated, and used at the best solar observatories in the world, or delivered to NASA and ESA to be launched to space. more

Inversion codes are used to aid the detailed interpretation of solar spectro-polarimetric data. This computer code attempts to find the atmospheric structure that produced an observed spectrum by minimizing the difference between the observed spectrum and a Stokes spectrum. more