03/28/2024 For the sixth time, the Excellence Cluster ORIGINS awards two outstanding dissertations in the fields of astro-, nuclear and particle physics and biophysics. Interdisciplinary thesis topics addressing one of the important milestones of the cluster and connecting various research disciplines will be preferred. The application deadline is 15 September 2024.

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03/20/2024 A new study by researchers from the team of ORIGINS scientist Dieter Braun shows how the chemical properties of RNA molecules could have facilitated the emergence of complex life.

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02/20/2024 The Radcliffe Wave is the largest coherent, wave-shaped gas structure ever observed in our Milky Way. It consists of interconnected star-forming regions and extends over 40 per cent of Orion's spiral arm in the vicinity of the Sun. An international team, including ORIGINS scientists at the Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich, could show that this is a travelling wave: the Radcliffe Wave oscillates around the galactic plane and, at the same time, slowly drifts away from the galactic centre.

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01/31/2024 Today, the German eROSITA consortium released the data for its share of the first all-sky survey by the soft X-ray imaging telescope flying aboard the Spectrum-RG (SRG) satellite. With about 900,000 distinct sources, the first eROSITA All-Sky Survey (eRASS1) has published the most extensive X-ray catalogue. Based on just the first six months of observations, eROSITA has already detected more sources than previously known in the 60-year history of X-ray astronomy.

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12/15/2023 This year, the Excellence Cluster ORIGINS is awarding three doctoral prizes exceptionally. The outstanding works of Angelo Caravano from the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich (LMU) and Elisabetta Bossio and Thomas Pöschl from the Technical University of Munich (TUM) are being honoured. The ORIGINS PhD Awards were presented ceremonially during the ORIGINS Science Week from 3. - 6. December 2023 in Kloster Irsee. 

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11/27/2023 The new Collaborative Research Center (CRC) TRR 392 "Molecular Evolution in Prebiotic Environments", a collaboration between Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität (LMU) and the Technical University of Munich (TUM), will start in April 2024. The scientists involved, including several from the ORIGINS Cluster, are researching the very first steps in the development of life on Earth. The focus is on how molecules evolved in a prebiotic world and produced the first life information in sequence form.

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11/23/2023 The European Research Council (ERC) is funding ORIGINS scientists Prof. Til Birnstiel and Prof. Job Boekhoven with two Consolidator Grants for their innovative projects.

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11/17/2023 Prof. Erwin Frey, ORIGINS scientist and Chair of Statistical and Biological Physics at the Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich, receives the Max Planck Medal - the most prestigious German Physical Society (DPG) award.

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11/16/2023 ORIGINS scientist and Max Planck Director Petra Schwille receives the highest recognition of the Federal Republic of Germany for services in the interest of the common good for her research.

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11/09/2023 Since November 1, the Max Planck Institute for Physics (MPP) has had a new address. After 65 years, the institute is saying "goodbye" to its location at the Englischer Garten in Munich and moving into a new building on the IPP site at the Garching Research Center. This closes a circle. The new domicile is not only located in the immediate vicinity of the excellence cluster ORIGINS, but also of the three MPIs, all of which were spun off from the MPP: the MPIs for Astrophysics, Plasma Physics, and Extraterrestrial Physics.

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