As the year draws to a close, we extend our heartfelt gratitude to all colleagues and friends who contribute to advancing our understanding of the habitats of massive stars across cosmic time. Your dedication and collaboration continue to illuminate the path forward in our shared scientific journey.
May this holiday season bring you moments of reflection and inspiration, and may the New Year provide new opportunities for discovery and progress.
The magazin CompositesWorld reports about the completion and structures of the FYST telescope by Airborne, featuring an off-axis Crossed-Dragone design, consisting of a parabolic primary mirror and a large concave secondary mirror, both with a diameter of roughly 6 meters. This creates a high-throughput, wide field-of-view telescope capable of mapping the sky rapidly and efficiently: https://www.compositesworld.com/news/airborne-completes-final-delivery-of-cfrp-mirror-structures-for-fred-young-submillimeter-telescope
photo: Jana Bauch (UzK)
video: Adam Polczyk, Niklas Carl (UzK)
The CRC’s Sustainability Board is responsible for coordinating the evaluation of the environmental impact of the CRC’s activities and proposing measures to reduce it.
In addition, the Sustainability Board organises talks and workshops for the CRC members to raise awareness of sustainability issues and establish solutions for daily work.
During the sustainability barbecue on October 17, among other topics, the University of Cologne’s sustainability strategy and the problem of conference trips were discussed. In the afternoon, several workshops took place, one of which involved participants building their own insect hotels. This Thursday, a total of seven insect hotels were put up around the physics department of the University of Cologne.
Insect hotels provide shelter and nesting facilities for a variety of insects during winter. Introducing insect hotels can help with pollination and ecosystem diversity.
Foto and Video by Helen Kupfer and Annemarie Sich
New guest talks are online, please have a look: https://sfb1601.astro.uni-koeln.de/volkssternwarte/
Our science is often not visible to the public because we don’t know how to present in properly.
With the help of the UoC press department we are aiming to change that.
A first seminar about science communication will be on Monday, June 24 at 3 pm (regular colloquium time). All PH1 or SFB1601-members are invited to join, there is no registration necessary.
Jülich Supercomputing Centre offers a training programme of about 25 HPC-relevant courses per year. The courses comprise lectures and hands-on training on programming languages, usage of HPC systems, parallel environments, MPI, hybrid programming, GPU programming, deep learning, and – in the near future – quantum computing.
The New Parent-Child Room is open!
To create a family friendly environment the Physics Department at the University of Cologne has set up a parent-child room supported by the German Research Foundation (DFG). The room offers a back-up option for combining work and child care in case of urgency, e. g. gaps in child care or in exceptional circumstances.
The University of Cologne has obtained a new Collaborative Research Center (CRC) from the German Research Foundation (DFG). In addition, two existing CRCs have been extended. The new CRC 1601 is entitled “The Cosmic Evolution of the Habitats of Massive Stars”. The CRC will be funded for four years. The spokesperson of the new Collaborative Research Center is astronomy professor Dr. Stefanie Walch-Gassner from the Institute of Astrophysics at the University of Cologne. The researchers are investigating the cosmic evolution of the habitats of massive stars – the gaseous environments in which these stars are born and with which they interact. Due to their short lifetimes and high energy output, massive stars have significantly influenced the evolution of galaxies since the beginning of the universe.
Within the CRC 1601, researchers are investigating the physical processes that determine the habitats of massive stars in different galactic environments. The new CRC combines four pillars: laboratory astrophysics, instrument development, observations, and theoretical modeling and simulations. The CRC partners have a strong profile as leading players in large international projects and have extensive experience in building and operating their own telescopes and developing state-of-the-art instruments in the infrared, submillimeter, and radio wave ranges. New developments, in particular the launch of the FYST/CCAT telescope in 2024, in which the Universities of Cologne and Bonn have a 25 percent stake, will be optimally supported by CRC 1601.
“We are extremely pleased about the new establishment of CRC 1601. The funding enables us to pursue an integrative approach. By combining the four pillars, we will be able to close major gaps in our understanding,” said Professor Dr. Walch-Gassner. “High-resolution studies of the habitats of massive stars will be combined with studies that look at the entire system ‘galaxy.’ This, and the inclusion of novel studies of the early universe and the associated extreme and highly variable conditions that prevail in young galaxies, will enable us to understand and quantify the cosmic evolution of the habitats of massive stars.”
Jan Voelkel
+49 221 470 2356
j.voelkel @verw.uni-koeln.de