An international team of astronomers led by Soeren Meibom of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics has found two planets smaller than Neptune orbiting Sun-like stars in the open star cluster NGC 6811. The discovery, published in the journal Nature, shows that planets can develop even in crowded clusters jam-packed with stars.

Until last Friday more than hundred scientists from Europe, Australia, Brazil, Chile, Canada, Japan and the US discussed the latest news in high-resolution spectroscopy and the developement of a new generation of spectroscopes for the ELT. They were invited to come to Potsdam by the Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics Potsdam (AIP) to join the institute's 10th ThinkShop, an event supported by the DFG.

The "Leibniz-Kolleg Potsdam" awards young scientists for their achievements in the field of publication and research.

New results pin down the distance to the galaxy next door. - After nearly a decade of careful observations an international team of astronomers, among them Jesper Storm, scientist at the Leibniz-Institute for Astophysics Potsdam (AIP), has measured the distance to our neighbouring galaxy, the Large Magellanic Cloud, more accurately than ever before. This new measurement also improves our knowledge of the rate of expansion of the Universe — the Hubble Constant — and is a crucial step towards understanding the nature of the mysterious dark energy that is causing the expansion to accelerate. The team used telescopes at ESO’s La Silla Observatory in Chile as well as others around the globe. These results appear in the 7 March 2013 issue of the journal Nature.

The Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics Potsdam (AIP) and the University of Potsdam jointly offer eight PhD stipends within the Graduate School focussing on »quantitative Spectroscopy in Astrophysics«.

Astronomers of the international CLUES collaboration have identified “Cosmic Web Stripping” as a new way of explaining the famous missing dwarf problem: the lack of observed dwarf galaxies compared with that predicted by the theory of Cold Dark Matter and Dark Energy.

In their search for habitable worlds, astronomers have started to consider exomoons, or those likely orbiting planets outside the solar system. In a new study, a pair of researchers has found that exomoons are just as likely to support life as exoplanets.

For the first time, astronomers have detected the magnetic field of a starspot.

The University of Potsdam awards Dr Andreas Schulze with this year's Michelson prize. Schulze worked on his thesis about "Demographics of Supermassive Black Holes" at the Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics Potsdam (AIP).

The Calar Alto Legacy Integral Field Area survey (CALIFA survey) announces today its first public release of data, offering an unprecedentedly detailed view of 100 galaxies in the local universe with ample opportunities for scientific study.

Dr Ulrich Müller is the new administrative chairman of AIP.

The 2012 Johann Wempe Award is awarded to Prof. Dr. Thomas R. Ayres from the Center for Astrophysics and Space Astronomy of the University of Colorado, Boulder, U.S.A. for his contributions to ultraviolet stellar spectroscopy and his detection of COmospheres.

Analysing data from NASA's Spitzer and Hubble Space Telescopes an international team of astronomers around Tanya Urrutia from AIP has caught sight of luminous quasars igniting after galaxies collide. Quasars are bright, energetic regions around giant, active black holes in galactic centers.

How can we use new photonic technologies to promote astronomy? That is the main question of this year’s Summer School, which will be held in Schloss Wiesenburg in Brandenburg. It is the first conference worldwide to promote the issue of astrophotonics: the application of photonics to astronomy.

Cecilia Scannapieco, currently working at the Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics Potsdam (AIP), is awarded with the Ludwig Biermann Award of the Astronomische Gesellschaft (AG). The award ceremony takes place in Hamburg on September 25, 2012.

Astronomers in Germany have developed an artificial intelligence algorithm to help them chart and explain the structure and dynamics of the universe around us. The team, led by Francisco Kitaura of the Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics in Potsdam, report their results in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.

The Committee on Small Body Nomenclature of the International Astronomical Union (IAU) has decided that the main-belt Asteroid 278513 is from now on called "Schwope".

About one hundred scientists from all over the world participate in the 9th Thinkshop of the AIP: "Galaxy surveys using Integral Field Spectroscopy; achievements and opportunities".

Dr. Federico Spada is awarded with the Karl Schwarzschild Fellowship 2012.