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MPIfR News
- Schmidt Sciences FirstLight Award for Dr. Vivek Venkatraman Krishnan
on 2026-11-04 at 14:00The MPIfR researcher will lead an international effort to discover extreme binary pulsars with the Deep Synoptic Array, opening new opportunities to test gravity and investigate ultra-dense matter.
- Unexpectedly young galaxy with a bar discovered
on 2026-10-16 at 10:30Bars are elongated structures of stars that extend across the central regions of galaxies, such as the Milky Way. They play a critical role in galaxy evolution by driving gas and dust toward galactic centres. An international team, which includes Axel Weiß from the MPIfR, could recently detect a bar-like structure in the dust emission of GN20 using the IRAM NOEMA interferometer. This massive and dusty starburst galaxy in the constellation Great Bear (Ursa Major) is observed just 1.5 billion years after the Big Bang – and should not yet have a bar, according to classical models of bar formation. These findings motivated a follow-up study using the James Webb Space Telescope to peer through GN20’s extreme dust obscuration. The team observed a previously hidden stellar bar, associated with intense star formation. The finding provides new insights into how gas-rich galaxies assembled and evolved in the early Universe.
- The Milky Way Trail leads to the Konrad-Adenauer-Gymnasium in Meckenheim
on 2026-10-12 at 10:00Extension 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 18:00What 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 14:00Very 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.
ESO News
- Dead star and planetary bodies: astronomers spot unique disc of debris that foretells Solar System’s future
on 2026-10-27 at 13:00Astronomers using the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope (ESO’s VLT) have found a rare disc of debris around a dead star that provides a glimpse of what may happen to our Solar System. Unlike in similar systems previously found, the debris — the leftovers of planets that once orbited the star — is organised in a double disc, the two parts separated by a clear gap. The disc appears to be shaped by two planetary bodies, one possibly as big as Pluto, that have survived the violent death of the star.
- Milky Way's fastest star orbits our supermassive black hole so closely it feels its spin
on 2026-08-19 at 15:00Astronomers 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 12:00At 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 15:00Observations 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 12:00A 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.