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.
Origin of Fast and Slow Solar Wind Discovered
Tiny plasma jets on the Sun drive both the fast and the slow solar wind, as can be seen from data collected by ESA’s Solar Orbiter spacecraft. A team of researchers led by the MPS has succeeded in relating images of tiny plasma jets in coronal holes, dark regions in the solar atmosphere, to in situ measurements of the solar wind. The jets are approximately 100 kilometers wide, last for approximately a minute and hurl charged particles into space at speeds of about 100 kilometers per second.
Ceres: Building Blocks of Life Delivered from Space
The organic material found in a few areas on the surface of dwarf planet Ceres is probably of exogenic origin. Impacting asteroids from the outer asteroid belt may have brought it with them. In the journal AGU Advances, a group of researchers led by the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research (MPS) in Germany presents the most comprehensive analysis to date of this mysterious material and its geological context.
Studying Planetary Systems in the Making
How do planets form from the disks of gas and dust that orbit around young stars? At the MPS, Joanna Drążkowska is investigating this question within the framework of a Lise Meitner Group of the Max Planck Society. The researcher's goal is to describe the entire development, spanning billions of years, from the smallest dust grains to the largest planets, in a unified model and to simulate it on the computer.
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.
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Tiny plasma jets on the Sun drive both the fast and the slow solar wind, as can be seen from data collected by ESA’s Solar Orbiter spacecraft. An international team of researchers led by the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research (MPS) in ...
The organic material found in a few areas on the surface of dwarf planet Ceres is probably of exogenic origin. Impacting asteroids from the outer asteroid belt may have brought it with them. In the journal AGU Advances, a group of researchers led by ...
How do planets form from the disks of gas and dust that orbit around young stars? At the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research (MPS) in Germany, Joanna Drążkowska is investigating this question within the framework of a Lise Meitner Group of ...
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 ...