news 2019

Astrophysicist discovers numerous multiple star systems with exoplanets Light Is Earth the only habitable planet in the universe or are there more worlds somewhere out there that are capable of supporting life? And if there are, what might they look like? In a bid to answer these fundamental questions, scientists are searching space for exoplanets: distant worlds that orbit other stars outside our solar system.

Despite 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.

Apart from photons, the fundamental quanta of light, neutrinos are the most abundant elementary particles in the universe. As they possess a small non-zero mass, these "light-weights of the universe" play a key role in cosmology and particle physics. The most precise scale for neutrinos in the world is the international experiment "KATRIN" at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, in which scientists of the University of Münster are also involved.

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.

Professor Schreiber, how big an impression did the Moon landing make on you when you were young? It wasn't just the Moon landing as such. What amazed me most were the steps that led up to it. It was a huge technical challenge. For example the question: How do I accelerate a rocket to reach the Moon? Back then, the technical possibilities were still quite limited.

For almost ten years, scientists from all over the world have been using the large-scale experiment "IceCube" to search for neutrinos in the permanent ice of the South Pole. Neutrinos are the smallest particles that reach Earth as cosmic rays. Now the participating researchers, among them Prof. Alexander Kappes from the University of Münster, are pleased about a huge upgrade of the laboratory, which should contribute to measuring the properties of neutrinos much more accurately than before.

Freie Universität Researchers Contribute to International Study Published in Nature No 215/2019 from Jul 12, 2019 How did the Earth evolve from a fireball about 4.5 billion years ago to a habitable world? The key to this question lies in the early history of our planet, when the bombardment with cosmic bodies slowly declined.

An international research team solves the mystery of how the mountain Ahuna Mons on Ceres was probably formed / Study in "Nature Geoscience" The scientists could hardly believe their eyes when they first saw this formation on the images acquired by their Framing Camera on board the Dawn space probe: a symmetrical mountain over 4000 metres tall and with steep, smooth sides rising over the crater-strewn surface of.

The Earth is unique in our solar system: It is the only terrestrial planet with a large amount of water and a relatively large moon, which stabilizes the Earth's axis. Both were essential for Earth to develop life. Planetologists at the University of Münster have now been able to show, for the first time, that water came to Earth with the formation of the Moon some 4.4 billion years ago.

EUMETSAT and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) today signed an agreement which will result in the agencies working closely together to monitor greenhouse gases in the Earth's atmosphere. Mr Kazuo Tachi, on behalf of the Direc tor General of JAXA's Space Technology Directorate 1 Ryoichi Imai, and EUMETSAT Director-General Alain Ratier signed the agreement at a ceremony at EUMETSAT's Darmstadt headquarters today.

The universe is almost 14 billion years old. An inconceivable length of time by human standards - yet compared to some physical processes, it is but a moment. There are radioactive nuclei that decay on much longer time scales. An international team of scientists has now directly measured the rarest decay process ever recorded in a detector.

New study in in the high-ranking journal Science No 73/2019 from Mar 29, 2019 A new study of Saturn's small inner moons was published in the high-ranking journal Science . Images of Pan, Daphnis, Atlas, Pandora and Epimetheus, obtained by the Cassini spacecraft in winter 2016/17, show that several of these so-called "shepherd moons" exhibit huge ridges around their equators, giving them a very peculiar and impressing walnut-like shape (Fig.