25.03.2009
Unique opportunities to study astronomy and spaceflight

Mirror of the SOFIA telescope, 2.7 meters in diameter (Copyright: NASA)

The Universities of Stuttgart and Tübingen offer some very exciting ways of studying astronomy and aerospace. At the end of last year the Institute of Space Systems in Stuttgart - one of the largest institutions of its kind in Germany – established a new chair for airborne astronomy and extraterrestrial aerospace missions. The current chair holder, Professor Alfred Krabbe, is also the scientific director of the German SOFIA Institute (DSI). In close collaboration with the US NASA and the DLR (German Aerospace Center) the institute will be involved in sending the flying observatory SOFIA (Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy) on its first stratospheric scientific mission later this year. The converted Boeing 747 SP houses an infrared telescope (2.7 meters in diameter and weighing in at 17 tons) which was developed in Germany and which will enable astronomers to take a first unobstructed infrared peek at the firmament with it. German and American researchers are confident that the telescope will provide them with completely new insights into the formation of stars and solar systems or about events in the centre of the Milky Way.

The University of Tübingen is home to several institutes which joined forces last year to form the “Kepler Center for Astro and Particle Physics”. As its name implies, the Center specialises in particular in research in the new and fast growing interdisciplinary field of astro and particle physics. Researchers working in Tübingen are looking especially at the cosmic sources of gravity waves and are studying the physical processes which generate high energy radiation, such as the gamma or x-rays emitted by neutron stars and black holes.

Both universities intend to intensify their collaboration in the 2009 International Year of Astronomy declared by UNESCO. “The combination of astronomy and aerospace offers researchers something quite unique and opens up entirely new opportunities," according to Professor Krabbe. The two universities have also put together an extensive programme for the general public which, amongst other things, will demonstrate the dramatic change in people’s understanding of their place in the universe following the discoveries made by Galileo Galilei with the first astronomical telescope and Johannes Keppler, who discovered the laws of planetary motion exactly 400 years ago. Kepler (1571 – 1630) was born in Weil der Stadt near Stuttgart and studied in Tübingen. 


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