Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research
The research focus of the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research is our cosmic neighborhood: the solar system with its planets and moons, comets and asteroids as well as the sun. The aim of the scientists is to describe the processes in the solar system in models and to simulate them on the computer. In addition, instruments are being developed and built to study these bodies from space. The Institute is involved in numerous space missions.
JUICE: Preparing for a Double Flyby
After almost one and a half years of traveling through space, ESA’s space probe JUICE is due to pay a visit home at the beginning of next week: In order to adjust its speed and course on its way to Jupiter, the space probe will first fly close to the Moon and then to Earth on Monday and Tuesday, August 19 and 20, 2024. This is the first time that a space probe has attempted a maneuver of this kind. The scientific and technical teams at the MPS have been preparing for this event for months.
Tiny Meteorites Create Lunar Atmosphere
The extremely thin atmosphere that surrounds the moon is primarily created by the constant bombardment of the lunar surface by dust-sized mini-meteorites. Other processes, such as the interaction with particles and radiation from the Sun, play a subordinate role, as researchers from the University of Chicago, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the MPS and the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center report in the journal Science Advances.
Key to Rapid Planet Formation
Ring-shaped perturbations in disks of gas and dust orbiting young stars can trigger the formation of several gas giants, as researchers from the ORIGINS Cluster of Excellence, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität in Munich and the MPS report in the current issue of Astronomy and Astrophysics. The team has developed a model that for the first time combines all the necessary physical processes that play a role in planet formation. According to this model, giant planets can form more efficiently and faster than previously assumed.
Otto Haxel Award for Yuto Bekki
Dr. Yuto Bekki has been honored with the Otto Haxel Award for Physics for his doctoral dissertation. In collaboration with the German Physical Society, the Society for the Promotion of the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) annually bestows this award upon the three best dissertations in physics from the Universities of Göttingen, Heidelberg, and KIT. During his doctorate, Yuto Bekki studied the Sun’s long-period oscillations, which had recently been discovered by researchers at the MPS.
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After almost one and a half years of traveling through space, ESA’s space probe JUICE is due to pay a visit home at the beginning of next week: In order to adjust its speed and course on its way to Jupiter, the space probe will first fly close to the ...
The extremely thin atmosphere that surrounds the moon is primarily created by the constant bombardment of the lunar surface by dust-sized mini-meteorites. Other processes, such as the interaction with particles and radiation from the Sun, play a ...
Ring-shaped perturbations in disks of gas and dust orbiting young stars can trigger the formation of several gas giants, as researchers from the ORIGINS Cluster of Excellence, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität in Munich (Germany) and the Max Planck ...
Dr. Yuto Bekki of the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research (MPS) has been honored with the Otto Haxel Award for Physics for his doctoral dissertation. In collaboration with the German Physical Society (DPG), the Society for the Promotion of ...