01/13/2022 What do we humans have in common with stars? Humans are born, live and die one day – so do stars. But with stars, everything happens over long cosmological time scales and with much more glamour and drama. An international research team, with the participation of the ORIGINS Excellence Cluster, has now reconstructed the history of the interstellar neighbourhood of our Sun, thereby showing how precisely star formation and stellar death are connected. The Sun is at the centre of a constantly growing, dust-free bubble whose dense rim is the birthplace of new stars.

01/12/2022 Joanna Drążkowska has received a Starting Grant from the European Research Council (ERC) for her research on "Planetoids". Joanna works as a postdoctoral researcher in the group of Til Birnstiel, one of the principal investigators of ORIGINS, at the LMU University Observatory. Her research helps improve our fundamental understanding of planet formation.

01/11/2022 The General Assembly of the Académie des sciences, the Paris Academy of Sciences, has elected Frank Eisenhauer, ORIGINS scientist in the infrared group at MPE, as a foreign member. The official admission is to take place on 14 June 2022 in a formal ceremony in Paris.

01/03/2022 In April 2017 the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) observed the super-massive black hole M87* and provided a first image of its shadow that went around the world. Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics have now reconstructed a video of the immediate surroundings of a black hole from the same underlying data. This not only confirms previous findings, it also hints at new structures and dynamics in the gas disk around the black hole.

12/16/2021 The Warsaw Science Society (Towarzystwo Naukowe Warszawski, TNW) elects Cluster Emeritus Prof. Dr. Andrzej J. Buras from the Technical University of Munich as a member. In this way, the TNW honors outstanding scientists who are connected to the Warsaw scientific community.

12/14/2021 ORIGINS scientist and Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics (MPA) Director Eiichiro Komatsu has been selected as one of the recipients of this year's Inoue Prize for Science. He is recognized for his work to study the physics of the early Universe as a researcher with remarkable achievements in the natural and fundamental sciences.

12/09/2021 The ORIGINS Cluster's doctoral prizes were awarded this year to Theo Glauch and Dimitar Mihaylov, both from the Technical University of Munich, for their excellent PhD theses. The awards were presented ceremoniously during the Science Week of the ORIGINS Cluster at the Irsee Monastery, which took place from 22 to 25 November 2021.

12/03/2021 Giulia Zanderighi, ORIGINS scientist and Director at the Max Planck Institute for Physics (MPP) is now Liesel Beckmann Professor at the Technical University of Munich (TUM). With this professorship, TUM honors outstanding female scientists whose careers serve as role models for young female academics.

11/19/2021 The German Physical Society (DPG) awards the Stern-Gerlach Medal, the DPG's highest award for excellent achievements in experimental physics, to ORIGINS scientist Frank Eisenhauer of the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics (MPE). Frank Eisenhauer is honoured for his "pioneering work in high-resolution infrared astronomy, which has revolutionized spectroscopic as well as astrometric studies."

10/29/2021 ORIGINS mourns the untimely loss of Prof. Dr. Shawn Bishop. After a long and serious illness he passed away on 19th October 2021, just a few days before his 50th birthday. Shawn Bishop was very involved in the Universe cluster of excellence, which is the predecessor cluster of ORIGINS.