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.

The astronomical journal Astronomische Nachrichten/Astronomical Notes (AN) was founded by H. C. Schumacher in 1821 and thus turns 200 years old in 2021. It is the oldest astronomical journal in the world that is still being published.

23 September 2021 marks the 175th anniversary of the discovery of the most distant planet in the solar system. The Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics Potsdam (AIP) celebrates this event with a lecture by Professor Matthias Steinmetz on the history of the discovery in the series of virtual Babelsberg Starry Nights on YouTube.

The German Astronomical Society (AG), the professional society for astronomy and astrophysics in Germany, recognises scientific achievements at the Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics Potsdam (AIP) in this year's award ceremony: The Instrument Development Award goes to Professor Martin Roth, and Dr Anke Arentsen receives the Doctoral Thesis Award.

Dr Aline Dinkelaker and Dr Aashia Rahman guest-edited a feature issue on the topic of astrophotonics, one of the research fields of innoFSPEC Potsdam at the Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics Potsdam (AIP).

Superflares, extreme radiation bursts from stars, have been suspected of causing lasting damage to the atmospheres and thus habitability of exoplanets. A newly published study found evidence that they only pose a limited danger to planetary systems, since the radiation bursts do not explode in the direction of the exoplanets.

Using data from the MUSE instrument, researchers at the Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics Potsdam (AIP) succeeded in detecting extremely faint planetary nebulae in distant galaxies.

In its meeting on 2 July 2021, the Joint Science Conference of the Federal Government and the Länder (GWK) decided to fund the consortium PUNCH4NFDI within the framework of the National Research Data Infrastructure (NFDI).

German Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier visited the Great Refractor of the Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics Potsdam (AIP) at the Albert Einstein Science Park on Telegrafenberg together with the Heads of State of Belgium, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Austria and Switzerland.