Max Planck Institutes and Experts

Scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy (MPIA) and the SPHERE instrument consortium at the Very Large Telescope of the European Southern Observatory (ESO) have discovered and characterised an extremely young exoplanet in a state of its formation. This gas giant with the designation PDS 70 b, with a mass equivalent to several Jupiters, was detected orbiting the star PDS 70 within a gap of its protoplanetary disk. This means that PDS 70 b is still in the vicinity of its birth place and likely still accumulating material.

Astronomers, led by Maria Bergemann from the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy, have investigated a small population of stars in the halo of the Milky Way Galaxy, finding its chemical composition to closely match that of the Galactic disk. This similarity provides compelling evidence that these stars have originated from within the disk, rather than from merged dwarf galaxies. The reason for this stellar migration is thought to be theoretically proposed oscillations of the Milky Way disk as a whole, induced by the tidal interaction of the Milky Way with a passing massive satellite galaxy.

Previous studies of large AGN samples both a low and at high redshifts seemed to rule out galaxy mergers as the drivers for black hole growth. A new technique developed at MPA for selecting a rare type of active galactic nuclei now show that it is possible to identify a new class of AGN in which more than 80% of the galaxies turn out to be merging or interacting systems, with clear indications of an accreting black hole. A detailed statistical analysis then reveals that mergers drive black hole formation in the most massive galaxies in the local Universe.

Quantum vacuum fluctuations in spacetime in the very early Universe generate gravitational waves, whose probability distribution is close to a Gaussian. However, they can also be generated by other sources, and carry imprints of the energy content of the early Universe. Scientists at MPA showed that these gravitational waves can be highly non-Gaussian, with a skewness much larger than for those generated by vacuum fluctuations.

Focusing on the context of postwar Rome, this project explores the capacity of exhibitions to write the history of their time. With the exhibitionary concepts developed in postwar Rome I pick up on early, site-specific readings of the contemporary. These should provide alternatives to today’s one-sided understanding of the term as an effect of global economies.