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Physics - Astronomy / Space - 09.12.2020
Breakthrough in nuclear physics
Breakthrough in nuclear physics
High-precision measurements of the strong interaction between stable and unstable particles The positively charged protons in atomic nuclei should actually repel each other, and yet even heavy nuclei with many protons and neutrons stick together. The so-called strong interaction is responsible for this.

Astronomy / Space - Physics - 26.11.2020
Unknown Population of Stars Discovered
Unknown Population of Stars Discovered
Near the centre of the Milky Way there exists a heretofore unknown population of stars that exhibits characteristic properties. It was discovered by an international research team under the direction of Dr Manuel Arca Sedda of Collaborative Research Centre "The Milky Way System" (CRC 881) of Heidelberg University.

Physics - Astronomy / Space - 26.11.2020
Sun model completely confirmed for the first time
Sun model completely confirmed for the first time
Borexino detector succeeds in measuring the sun's CNO fusion cycle The Borexino Experiment research team has succeeded in detecting neutrinos from the sun's second fusion process, the Carbon Nitrogen Oxygen cycle (CNO cycle) for the first time. This means that all of the theoretical predictions on how energy is generated within the sun have now also been experimentally verified.

Astronomy / Space - 23.11.2020
Stammbaum der Milchstraße
Galaxies like the Milky Way formed by the merging of smaller progenitor galaxies. An international team of astrophysicists led by Dr Diederik Kruijssen from the Centre for Astronomy at Heidelberg University has succeeded in reconstructing the merger history of our home galaxy, creating a complete family tree.

Astronomy / Space - 13.11.2020
Duration of solar system formation identified
Duration of solar system formation identified
This is an artist's impression of a young star surrounded by a protoplanetary disc in which planets are forming. Using ALMA's 15-kilometre baseline astronomers were able to make the first detailed image of a protoplanetary disc, which revealed the complex structure of the disc. Concentric rings of gas, with gaps indicating planet formation, are visible in this artist's impression and were predicted by computer simulations.

Astronomy / Space - Chemistry - 26.10.2020
Molecular water discovered on the moon by the SOFIA flying observatory
Molecular water discovered on the moon by the SOFIA flying observatory
For the first time, the SOFIA (Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy) flying observatory has provided direct and unambiguous evidence of water molecules on the moon beyond the permanent shadow at the poles. The infrared observatory, which is owned jointly by the US space agency NASA and the German Aerospace Center (DLR) was able to detect the molecules in the moon's southern hemisphere using the FORCAST (Faint Object InfraRed CAmera for the SOFIA-Telescope) instrument.

Astronomy / Space - Physics - 30.09.2020
Stellar explosion in Earth's proximity
Stellar explosion in Earth’s proximity
Discovery of iron-60 and manganese-53 substantiates supernova 2.5 million years ago When the brightness of the star Betelgeuse dropped dramatically a few months ago, some observers suspected an impending supernova - a stellar explosion that could also cause damage on Earth. While Betelgeuse has returned to normal, physicists from the Technical University of Munich (TUM) have found evidence of a supernova that exploded near the Earth around 2.5 million years ago.

Astronomy / Space - Physics - 22.09.2020
Water trapped in star dust
Water trapped in star dust
Astrophysicists prove that dust particles in space are mixed with ice Light The matter between the stars in a galaxy - called the interstellar medium - consists not only of gas, but also of a great deal of dust. At some point in time, stars and planets originated in such an environment, because the dust particles can clump together and merge into celestial bodies.

Astronomy / Space - Physics - 09.09.2020
Revealing the secrets of high-energy cosmic particles
Revealing the secrets of high-energy cosmic particles
P-ONE: Initiative for a new, large-scale Neutrino Observatory in the Pacific Ocean The "IceCube" neutrino observatory deep in the ice of the South Pole has already brought spectacular new insights into cosmic incidents of extremely high energies. In order to investigate the cosmic origins of elementary particles with even higher energies, Prof. Elisa Resconi from the Technical University of Munich (TUM) has now started an international initiative to build a neutrino telescope several cubic kilometers in size in the northeastern Pacific.

Astronomy / Space - 10.08.2020
Dwarf Planet Ceres: Evidence of Active Cryovolcanism
Dwarf Planet Ceres: Evidence of Active Cryovolcanism
Until a million years ago, dwarf planet Ceres, the largest body in the asteroid belt, was the scene of cryovolcanic eruptions: below the Occator Crater, subsurface brine pushed upward; the water evaporated, leaving behind bright, salty deposits. This process is probably still ongoing. A team of researchers led by the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research (MPS) in Germany comes to these conclusions after evaluating high-resolution camera images of Ceres from the final phase of NASA's Dawn mission.

Astronomy / Space - Physics - 28.07.2020
How stony-iron meteorites form
How stony-iron meteorites form
SAPHiR multi-anvil press solves mystery of the solar system Meteorites give us insight into the early development of the solar system. Using the SAPHiR instrument at the Research Neutron Source Heinz Maier-Leibnitz (FRM II) at the Technical University of Munich (TUM), a scientific team has for the first time simulated the formation of a class of stony-iron meteorites, so-called pallasites, on a purely experimental basis.

Astronomy / Space - 21.07.2020
Largest stony meteorite of Germany found: Researchers at the University of Münster confirm
Largest stony meteorite of Germany found: Researchers at the University of Münster confirm
Even in science, chance sometimes produces more thrilling discoveries that the most ambitious plans. In 1989, a homeowner was digging a cable trench on his property in Blaubeuren, in the German region of Swabia, when his spade hit a rock measuring 28 by 25 by 20 centimetres. Upon lifting it half a metre to the surface, he found that it was remarkably heavy.

Astronomy / Space - Environment - 25.06.2020
Super-Earths discovered orbiting nearby red dwarf
Super-Earths discovered orbiting nearby red dwarf
International researchers led by University of Göttingen find multiple planet system orbiting Gliese 887 The nearest exoplanets to us provide the best opportunities for detailed study, including searching for evidence of life outside the Solar System. In research led by the University of Göttingen, the RedDots team of astronomers has detected a system of super-Earth planets orbiting the nearby star Gliese 887, the brightest red dwarf star in the sky.

Physics - Astronomy / Space - 17.06.2020
Surprising Signal in the XENON1T Dark Matter Experiment
Surprising Signal in the XENON1T Dark Matter Experiment
Scientists from the international XENON collaboration under participation of the University of Münster announced today that data from their XENON1T, the world's most sensitive dark matter experiment, show a surprising excess of events. The scientists do not claim to have found dark matter. Instead, they say to have observed an unexpected rate of events, the source of which is not yet fully understood.

Astronomy / Space - Chemistry - 16.06.2020
If there is life out there, can we detect it?
Scientists at Freie Universität Berlin publish two experimental studies in journal Astrobiology No 101/2020 from Jun 16, 2020 Instruments on-board future space missions are capable of detecting amino acids, fatty acids, and peptides, and even identify ongoing biological processes on ocean moons in our Solar System.

Astronomy / Space - 15.05.2020
Like Thunder Without Lightning
Like Thunder Without Lightning
Mergers between black holes and neutron stars in dense star clusters are quite unlike those that form in isolated regions where stars are few. Their associated features could be crucial to the study of gravitational waves and their source. Dr Manuel Arca Sedda of the Institute for Astronomical Computing at Heidelberg University came to this conclusion in a study that used computer simulations.

Astronomy / Space - Campus - 28.04.2020
Black holes have no hair
Black holes have no hair
International research team verifies the validity of the "No Hair" theorem by actual observations Light With the help of NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope, an international team of researchers has confirmed that the cosmic object OJ 287 is a distant galaxy with a binary system of two supermassive black holes in its centre, which are orbiting each other.

Earth Sciences - Astronomy / Space - 28.02.2020
An iron-clad asteroid
An iron-clad asteroid
Mineralogists from Jena and Japan make a surprising discovery on soil samples of the asteroid "Itokawa". Mineralogists from Jena and Japan discover a previously unknown phenomenon in soil samples from the asteroid 'Itokawa': the surface of the celestial body is covered with tiny hair-shaped iron crystals.

Astronomy / Space - Environment - 17.02.2020
First research results on the
First research results on the "spectacular meteorite fall" of Flensburg
Planetologists from Münster University show that the meteorite contains minerals that formed under the presence of water on small planetesimals in the early history of our solar system. A fireball in the sky, accompanied by a bang, amazed hundreds of eyewitnesses in northern Germany in mid-September last year.

Astronomy / Space - Physics - 08.01.2020
New Hubble constant measurement using cosmic lenses
New Hubble constant measurement using cosmic lenses
New measurement of the universe's expansion rate strengthens call for new physics Using cosmic lenses an international team of astrophysicists determined the universe's expansion rate, completely independent of any previous method. The researchers' result further strengthens a troubling discrepancy between the expansion rate calculated from measurements of the local universe and the rate as predicted from background radiation of the early universe.