Over the winter months, the historic telescope now opens its dome again for public observation evenings. On six dates between November 2024 and April 2025 anyone who is interested will have the opportunity to take a look through the world's fourth-largest refracting telescope.

Katja Poppenhäger has been named the new Director of the research field ’Stellar, Solar and Exoplanetary Physics’ at the Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics Potsdam (AIP). With her extensive international experience in exoplanet research, she is strengthening AIP's profile and establishing new priorities.

On Saturday, October 19, 2024, the “Long Night of Astronomy” took place in the Great Refractor. A total of 200 visitors took part in the interactive guided tours from 4pm to 10pm. The event offered guests a unique mix of science and historical theater.

The 6th edition of the classic teaching book “Astronomie und Astrophysik – Ein Grundkurs” is now available. The standard work has been completely revised by Prof Dr Lutz Wisotzki from the AIP. Over 140 new illustrations based on current data and a completely restructured chapter on galaxy development, in which the formation and development of galaxies is presented in an understandable and compact way.

The next talk of the Virtual Babelsberg Starry Nights of the Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics Potsdam (AIP) on the topic "The physics of the formation of galaxies" (German) by Dr. Rainer Weinberger will be broadcast on the YouTube channel “Urknall, Weltall und das Leben” (Big Bang, Universe and Life) from Thursday, 17thOctober 2024.

A group of scientists led by the Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics Potsdam (AIP) and the Institute of Cosmos Sciences at the University of Barcelona (ICCUB) have used a novel machine learning model to process data for 217 million stars observed by the Gaia mission in an extremely efficient way. The results were published in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics.

An international research team led by the Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics Potsdam (AIP) has developed a new method of imaging the universe and created a fascinating map of the cosmos based on analysing the motions of 56,000 galaxies. The work shows impressive cosmic structures and maps the large-scale interconnectedness of galaxy superclusters in our universe.

To mark the Day of Open Monuments, the Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics Potsdam (AIP) invited visitors to the Telegrafenberg on September 8, 2024. The focus was on the Einstein Tower, which celebrated its 100th anniversary this year.

With the help of machine learning, a team at the AIP has made a surprising discovery. Based on data from the Gaia mission, a large number of ancient stars with similar orbits to our sun have been discovered.

The next talk of the Virtual Babelsberg Starry Nights of the Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics Potsdam (AIP) on the topic “News from the solar neighbourhood" (German) by Dr. Ralf-Dieter Scholz will be broadcast on the YouTube channel “Urknall, Weltall und das Leben” (Big Bang, Universe and Life) from Thursday, 18. July 2024.

Newly identified, extremely fast-moving stars in the star cluster Omega Centauri provide solid evidence for a black hole in its centre. With at least 8200 solar masses this is the first intermediate-mass black hole reliably observed to date. The study was published in the journal Nature.

The joint project PICS4^SENS by the Leibniz Institutes AIP and IHP in cooperation with the innoFSPEC transfer laboratory at the University of Potsdam will be funded over a period of four years with a total of 3,4 million euros, 2.2 million euros of which will go to the AIP.