As the Earth moves through space, it wobbles slightly. A team of researchers from the Technical University of Munich (TUM) and the University of Bonn has now succeeded in measuring these fluctuations in the Earth's axis using a completely new method – until now, possible only through complex radio astronomy. The team used the high-precision ring laser at TUM's geodetic observatory in Wettzell, Bavaria. The results of the 250-day experiment have now been published in the renowned journal Science Advances.

Quantum physics—for many, a mystery involving cats, strange particles, and formulas that make your head spin. And yet it has long been shaping our everyday lives: in smartphones, laser pointers, and modern medicine. All this has been made possible by over 100 years of tireless basic research.

Orion Nebula, Pleiades and Hyades: The latest research results indicate that these famous star clusters represent the different phases of life of one and the same star system. A team of astrophysicists at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Basic Sciences in Zanjan, Iran, and the University of Bonn have found evidence that these three star systems are not just located in roughly the same region of space but also developed in the same way. These results were recently published in the journal “Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.”

The Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Bonn will be represented in three Clusters of Excellence in the future - an impressive success that underlines the breadth and international visibility of its research. The University of Bonn was successful with a total of eight approved clusters in the nationwide Excellence Strategy and is therefore once again one of the absolute leaders in the German science system.

The “afterglow” of the universe is an important piece of evidence for the Big Bang. This background radiation also provides important answers to the question of how the first galaxies were able to form. Researchers at the Universities of Bonn, Prague and Nanjing calculate that the strength of this radiation has probably been overestimated up to now. If the results prove to be accurate, it would call into question the theoretical foundation of the standard model of cosmology. The results have now been published in the journal “Nuclear Physics B.”

Technology is being pushed to its very limits. The upgrades to the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN slated for the next few years will increase data transfer rates beyond what the current neutrino detector for the FASER experiment can cope with, requiring it to be replaced by a new kind of more powerful detector. This is a task that physicist Professor Matthias Schott from the University of Bonn will be tackling with the help of €1 million in Reinhart Koselleck funding from the German Research Foundation (DFG).

Clausius Assistant Professor Dr. Lena Funcke of the University of Bonn is one of ten researchers to receive a Heinz Maier-Leibnitz Prize awarded by the German Research Foundation (DFG). Endowed with a purse of 200,000 euros, the DFG characterizes the Prize as Germany’s most prestigious award for researchers in early stages of their careers. 

An international research team has analyzed data from 41 million galaxies in order to estimate the distribution of matter in the universe. The data confirm a long-established model – much to the team’s surprise.