On 23 June 2022, the staff of the Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics Potsdam (AIP) will commemorate the founding director of the institute and their colleague of many years, Professor Karl-Heinz Rädler, together with family, friends and scientific collaborators of the great researcher at a one-day colloquium.

The third data release from ESA's Gaia mission contains astrophysical information for 1.8 billion stars in the Milky Way, as well as objects in our solar system and extragalactic sources. The Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics Potsdam (AIP) is one of the Gaia partner data centres and was significantly involved in the calculation of the radial velocities.

The Johann Wempe Foundation honours Dr Roland Bacon of the Centre de Recherche Astrophysique de Lyon, France, with the Johann Wempe Award 2022. The award ceremony will take place at the Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics Potsdam (AIP) in Babelsberg in the Schwarzschildhaus on Tuesday, 14 June 2022, starting at 2 pm.

The European Space Agency's (ESA) Gaia space observatory will release its third data catalogue on 13 June 2022. Apart from the largest and most accurate astrometric and photometric survey to date, the Gaia Data Release 3 (Gaia DR3) contains the largest collection of astrophysical data to date for 1.8 billion stars in the Milky Way, as well as solar system objects and extragalactic sources.

The Leibniz-Kolleg Potsdam honours Dr Dario Fritzewski, who analysed the rotational activity of a 300-million-year-old star cluster in three publications and further developed an innovative method for determining the age of stars, with its publication prize.

The X-ray telescope eROSITA discovered for the first time the early phase of a thermonuclear explosion and thus confirms a decades-old prediction of a nova model.

After the laying of the foundation stone in October, the main body of the planned extension building for the Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics Potsdam (AIP) is already complete. To mark the occasion, today the institute celebrated with a topping out ceremony.

On May 7, 2022, the Potsdam Science Day will take place for the eighth time, with more than 30 universities, schools and research institutions in Brandenburg presenting themselves - including the Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics Potsdam (AIP).

On 28 April, 2022, the Girls' Day/Future Day Brandenburg will take place once again. On this nationwide day of action, female students from the 5th grade onwards have the opportunity to gain insight into occupational fields in which women are underrepresented. The Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics Potsdam (AIP) opens its doors, again virtually, on this day.

The first of three spectrographs for 4MOST, a new innovative instrument for sky surveys being built under the leadership of the Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics Potsdam (AIP), arrived at the institute’s campus in Babelsberg and produced its first spectrum.

Using data from the VISTA survey of the Magellanic Clouds system (VMC), researchers at the Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics Potsdam (AIP), in collaboration with scientists from the VMC team, confirmed the existence of elongated orbits which are at the backbone of the bar formation process.

The European Research Council (ERC) has awarded Dr Oliver Gressel, scientist at the Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics Potsdam (AIP), with a prestigious Consolidator Grant. The aim of the project is to gain a better understanding of the formation and development of the gas disks around young stars from which planets are formed. The grant covers almost 2.5 million euros over a period of five years.

AIP shows solidarity with all Ukrainians and especially the Ukrainian researchers.

The Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics Potsdam (AIP) announces the completion of a major three-publication survey of one of the richest accessible open star clusters. The final study features a method of deriving the rotation periods of stars from just one observation of the stellar activity rather than repeated observations over several weeks.

An international team of scientists has successfully measured the masses of the giant planets of the V1298 Tau system, which is just 20 million years old. The study now published in Nature Astronomy delivers the first evidence that these objects can reach their final size within their first millions of years of evolution.

The space probe Solar Obiter, carrying on board the X-ray telescope STIX developed with the participation of the Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics Potsdam (AIP), approaches Earth in a flyby manoeuvre on 27 November 2021.

With construction for 4MOST, an instrument for spectroscopic sky surveys, underway, its first major subsystem arrived at the Babelsberg campus of the Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics Potsdam (AIP) and is now being unpacked and assembled.

The Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics Potsdam (AIP) today celebrated the laying of the foundation stone for its extension building at the Babelsberg campus together with Dr Inge Schlotzhauer, Head of Division for Non-University Research, Brandenburg Ministry of Science, Research and Culture and Chair of the Board of Trustees of AIP, the Mayor of the State Capital Potsdam, Mike Schubert, and the President of the Leibniz Association, Prof Matthias Kleiner.

The Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics Potsdam (AIP) has again received the “TOTAL E-QUALITY” award, which is valid for the years 2021 to 2023.

A research team including the Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics Potsdam (AIP) has investigated a solar prominence and has observed that charged particles in it moved 70 percent faster than uncharged particles. The measurements hint at the dynamical processes in the prominence and can be used, for example, to check model computations for simulating gas clouds in star and planet formation.