Max Planck Institutes and Experts

A group of astronomers led by Remco van den Bosch from the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy has discovered a black hole that could shake the foundations of current models of galaxy evolution. At 17 billion times the mass of the Sun, its mass is much greater than current models predict – in particular in relation to the mass of its host galaxy. This could be the most massive black hole found to date.

An infrared imaging search with the Subaru telescope has captured a rare image of a “Super-Jupiter” around the massive star κ Andromedae. The gas giant has a mass about 13 times that of Jupiter, while the host star has a mass 2.5 times that of the Sun. There are strong indications that this planet formed in a manner similar to ordinary, lower-mass exoplanets: in a “protoplanetary disk” of gas and dust that surrounded the newborn star. This makes the planet an important test case for current models of planet formation and their predictions about planets around massive stars.

Seismic vibrations on Earth contain information about the structure of our planet, seismic vibrations on distant stellar remnants could shed light not only on the star itself but also on the basic constituents of all matter. The objects under study: neutron stars with strong magnetic fields. The method: a new model that combines both the elastic shear vibrations of the crust and pulsations caused by the magnetic field. Current X-ray observations can only be explained by the coupled vibrations and the model even predicts how high-energy radiation is modulated by these oscillations.

For decades, theorists have been faced with a problem: How can we explain the diverse chemical properties seen in different types of galaxies in the nearby Universe? Now, an international team of astrophysicists, led by members of the MPA, have found a single, self-consistent model that can indeed simultaneously reconcile these chemical properties. This model follows the standard hierarchical merging scenario of structure formation, and therefore shows that − at least in this respect − what we see in our Universe is what we expect.

The German Warburg-Kreis art historians’ language had been transformed due to their forced exile in English-speaking countries. How has the study of visual arts been influenced by languages rooted in different cultural traditions? Research focuses on the way Aby Warburg’s approach altered in the works of his first intellectual heirs.