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.
Season’s Greetings
This year, the Sun put on quite a show. In both May and October, powerful eruptions led to strong solar storms. Auroras were visible even over Göttingen (and the MPS) and made the night sky glow in beautiful colors.
The year also offered further reasons to celebrate. Read more...
We would like to thank you very much for your
support and cooperation during this past year.
We wish you happy holidays and a healthy and
successful New Year 2025.
Old Moon with a Young Crust
A few hundred million years after its formation, the Moon may have been the scene of such immense volcanic activity that its entire crust melted several times and was completely churned through. The new considerations presented in the journal Nature by an international team of researchers from the University of California Santa Cruz, the MPS and the Collège de France resolve previous contradictions and inconsistencies regarding the age of the Moon. According to the researchers, the Moon was formed between 4.43 and 4.51 billion years ago. Its crust, however, appears at least 80 million years younger.
First Solar Images from Sunrise III
The balloon-borne solar observatory Sunrise III captured images of the Sun with highest resolution in July of this year during its six-and-a-half-day stratospheric flight. The team has now published the first, carefully processed images. They show smallest structures on the Sun’s visible surface, only 50 kilometers in size. The Sunrise III data make it possible to follow processes on the solar surface and in its lower atmosphere at an unprecedented height resolution for several hours without interruption.
Superflares once per Century
Stars similar to the Sun produce a gigantic outburst of radiation on average about once every hundred years per star. Such superflares release more energy than a trillion hydrogen bombs and make all previously recorded solar flares pale in comparison. This estimate is based on an inventory of 56450 sun-like stars, which an international team of researchers led by the MPS presents in the journal Science. It shows that previous studies have significantly underestimated the eruptive potential of these stars.
Research Departments
At a Glance
News
Seminars
News
A few hundred million years after its formation, the Moon may have been the scene of such immense volcanic activity that its entire crust melted several times and was completely churned through. At that time, the Moon orbited significantly closer to ...
The balloon-borne solar observatory Sunrise III captured images of the Sun with highest resolution in July of this year during its six-and-a-half-day stratospheric flight. The team has published the first, carefully processed images today. They show ...
Stars similar to the Sun produce a gigantic outburst of radiation on average about once every hundred years per star. Such superflares release more energy than a trillion hydrogen bombs and make all previously recorded solar flares pale in ...
During its flyby of Uranus 38 years ago, NASA's space probe Voyager 2 witnessed the ice giant’s magnetosphere in a truly exceptional state: an unusually strong solar wind likely dramatically compressed the planet's magnetic shield at the time. This ...