APEX News

MPIfR News

  • The Milky Way Trail leads to the  Konrad-Adenauer-Gymnasium in Meckenheim
    on 2026-10-12 at 10:00

    Extension of the hiking trail from the Effelsberg Radio Telescope to the Large Magellanic Cloud

  • Record-breaking radio burst just three billion years after the Big Bang
    on 2026-10-08 at 18:00

    What mysterious phenomenon is capable of creating a millisecond-long blast of radio waves so powerful that we can detect it from billions of light-years away? Clues to the origin of such events, known as fast radio bursts (FRBs), can be found in a recently discovered source.

  • First 690 GHz VLBI Detection
    on 2026-10-07 at 14:00

    Very long baseline interferometry (VLBI) combines radio telescopes separated by large distances to achieve a high resolving power. The Event Horizon Telescope used this technique at 230 GHz to image the black holes in M87 and the center of our Galaxy. Moving VLBI to still higher frequencies can provide even finer angular resolution, but it also becomes increasingly difficult because atmospheric fluctuations disturb the signals much more rapidly.An international team, involving scientists from the MPIfR, has now achieved a major milestone at frequencies of 690 GHz. Using observational data from 2024, an interferometric signal (‘fringe’) was detected between the Atacama Large Millimetre/submillimetre Array (ALMA) and the Atacama Pathfinder Experiment (APEX) in Chile, marking an important step towards the next generation of ultra-high-frequency VLBI.

  • First detection of heavy methanol in space
    on 2026-10-07 at 07:30

    The discovery of a rare form of methanol around a young star provides new insights into the formation of organic molecules in interstellar space.

  • From the Effelsberg Radio Telescope to the ESO Supernova
    on 2026-09-09 at 04:00

    Extension of the Milky Way Trail to the Research Campus in Garching

ESO News

  • Milky Way's fastest star orbits our supermassive black hole so closely it feels its spin
    on 2026-08-19 at 15:00

    Astronomers have discovered the fastest known star in our galaxy, the Milky Way, orbiting the black hole at its centre. The star, named S301, was detected with the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope Interferometer (ESO’s VLTI) and reaches speeds of 25 000 km/s as it travels around the four-million-Solar-mass black hole. It comes closer to it than any other observed before, so close that it feels the effects of the black hole’s rotation.

  • Astronomers find strongest evidence yet that Betelgeuse has a companion
    on 2026-07-28 at 12:00

    At long last, astronomers have firm evidence that Betelgeuse, one of the most famous stars in the night sky, is not alone. Using the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope (ESO's VLT), a team led by French researcher Miguel Montargès obtained the clearest image ever of what likely is Betelgeuse B, the star orbiting Betelgeuse. “This is the conclusion of a century-long quest,” says Montargès.

  • New ‘exomoon’ detection challenges cosmic labels
    on 2026-07-22 at 15:00

    Observations made with the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope (ESO’s VLT) have revealed evidence for a moon-like object in the CD-35 2722 system. Unlike moons in our Solar System, the newly found object does not orbit a planet, raising questions about what to name it. Instead, it circles a brown dwarf, an object larger than a planet, that orbits the CD-35 2722 star. If confirmed, this could be the first ‘moon’ discovered outside our Solar System.

  • Faintest planet ever imaged from Earth found after more than 10 years of hide-and-seek
    on 2026-07-15 at 12:00

    A team of astronomers have discovered a third planet orbiting the star Beta Pictoris. The new planet, Beta Pictoris d, is 100 times fainter than Beta Pictoris b — the first planet discovered in the same system — and is among the lightest exoplanets ever to be imaged from the ground. After spotting the planet using the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope (ESO’s VLT), the team found it had been hiding in archive observations spanning more than a decade.

  • Older than the Sun: Astronomers find new clues to the origin of interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS
    on 2026-07-06 at 09:00

    Astronomers have used the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope (ESO's VLT) to study the composition of 3I/ATLAS, the brightest interstellar object ever seen, in detail. By measuring specific chemical fingerprints — the first observations of this kind for a comet that formed outside the Solar System — they found that 3I/ATLAS likely originated in the outskirts of an old star system. The findings shine new light on the formation history of this comet, indicating that it may be much older than the Sun.