10/14/2019 ESO astronomer and ORIGINS Scientist Dr. Leonardo Testi together with Patrick Hennebelle from CEA Paris-Saclay in France, Ralf Klessen from the University of Heidelberg in Germany, and Sergio Molinari from the Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica in Rome, Italy, were awarded with up to €12.6 million by the European Research Council (ERC) for the project "ECOGAL – Understanding our Galactic ecosystem: From the disk of the Milky Way to the formation sites of stars and planets". This project is one of only 37 synergy grants to be funded by the ERC in 2019 and the only one in the…

more

09/16/2019 Because of their extremely small mass, neutrinos play a key role in cosmology and particle physics. After evaluation of the first measurement results in the Karlsruhe Tritium Neutrino Experiment (KATRIN), it is now clear: The previously unknown mass of the neutrinos must be less than 1 electron volt. This result is more accurate than previous measurements and raises hopes of discovering new neutrino properties.

more

09/05/2019 In the quest to prove that matter can be produced without antimatter, the GERDA experiment at the Gran Sasso Underground Laboratory is looking for signs of neutrinoless double beta decay. The experiment has the greatest sensitivity worldwide for detecting the decay in question. To further improve the chances of success, a follow-up project, LEGEND, uses an even more refined decay experiment.

more

08/22/2019 It is among the most spectacular events in the universe: a merger of neutron stars. An international team of researchers with strong representation from the Technical University of Munich (TUM) has completed the first laboratory measurements of thermal electromagnetic radiation arising in such collisions. The resulting data enabled them to calculate the prevailing temperature when such stars merge.

more

04/29/2019 The Helmholtz Excellence Network “Munich Center for Plasma Astrophysics” headed by Professor Frank Jenko from the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics (IPP) and Principal Investigator of the Excellence Cluster Origins will commence its work on 1 May. The Center is being funded with around a million euros by the Helmholtz Association of German Research Centres. The main objective will be to contribute to the excellence cluster ORIGINS through studies relating to plasma astrophysics.

more

03/25/2019 The Belle II detector got off to a successful start in Japan. Since March 25, 2019, the instrument has been measuring the first particle collisions, which are generated in the modernized SuperKEKB accelerator. The new duo produces more than 50 times the number of collisions compared to its predecessor. The huge increase in evaluable data means that there is not a greater chance of finding out why there is an imbalance between matter and anti-matter in the Universe.

more

02/28/2019 Was geschah nach dem Urknall? Wie entstehen Sterne und Galaxien? Welche Rolle spielt dabei die Dunkle Materie? Um zu verstehen, wie sich unser Universum entwickelt, haben Wissenschaftler mit Hilfe des Hochleistungsrechners SuperMUC aufwendige und spektakuläre Simulationen erstellt. In Zusammenarbeit mit dem Münchner Exzellenzcluster Universe und dessen Nachfolger Origins, in denen verschiedene wissenschaftliche Institutionen zusammengeschlossen sind, ist daraus nun eine neue Fulldome-Show entstanden, die künftig regelmäßig im Planetarium des Deutschen Museums gezeigt wird.…

more

12/19/2018 A new research group will be launched at the Max Planck Institute for Physics (MPP) in early January 2019. Its main focus will be on the analysis of decay of the tau lepton, an elementary particle related to the electron. The “Tautology Project” will be led by Max-Planck Fellow Stephan Paul, Professor of Hadron Structure and Fundamental Symmetries at the Technical University of Munich (TUM) and co-coordinator of the recently approved Cluster of Excellence “Origins”.

more