With funding from the Federal Ministry of Research, Technology and Space (BMFTR), the new project SIBAF (Supraleitender Ionenbeschleuniger als BAsistechnologie für die Fusionsforschung) will establish a unique accelerator-based infrastructure for the rapid qualification of advanced materials for future fusion power plants. As part of the funding program “Basistechnologien für die Fusion – auf dem Weg zu einem Fusionskraftwerk” (Basic technologies for fusion – on the path to a fusion power plant), SIBAF will receive €9.7 million over three years, of which €8.1 million will support activities at the GSI Helmholtzzentrum für Schwerionenforschung and the international accelerator center FAIR, currently under construction. Alongside GSI, which coordinates the project, Goethe University Frankfurt is the project partner.

Venus appears pale yellow in visible light, but ultraviolet images reveal dramatic dark and bright patterns moving with the planet’s upper sulfuric acid clouds. Scientists have known about these markings for roughly a century, yet the chemical identity of the material responsible—the “unknown absorber”—remains unresolved.

With the accelerated advancement of lunar and Mars exploration programs, long-term human habitation on extraterrestrial bodies faces the severe challenge of extreme diurnal temperature variations. Phase change materials (PCMs), owing to their ability to store or release substantial latent heat during solid–liquid phase transitions while maintaining a nearly constant temperature, have become an ideal solution for space thermal control systems. However, in the microgravity environment of space, the ground-dominant natural convection tends to disappear, and thermocapillary convection may become the prevailing heat transfer mechanism; in low-gravity environments such as those on the Moon and Mars, the coexistence and competition between these two convective regimes remain unclear. Existing studies have predominantly focused on either Earth's gravity or pure microgravity conditions, with a notable scarcity of research on the coupled effects of thermocapillary and natural convection at intermediate gravity levels. The melting dynamics of two typical organic PCMs, succinonitrile and n-octadecane, under low-gravity conditions have not yet been systematically elucidated. Therefore, clarifying the roles of thermocapillary convection under varying gravity levels and container geometries holds significant engineering guidance for the design of efficient space thermal control systems.

Roman Space Telescope, Launch Date: The NASA Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is scheduled for launch on 30 August 2026 from Kennedy Space Center on a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket to study the universe's history and dark matter and energy as well as exoplanets.

MPIA Heidelberg Contribution: The Max Planck Institute for Astronomy (MPIA) in Heidelberg played a key role in developing the Coronagraph Instrument (CGI), including designing, manufacturing, and testing its Precision Alignment Mechanisms (PAMs).

Scientific Goals: CGI aims to observe older, cooler gas giants closer to their stars than previously possible and analyze their atmospheres with an integrated spectrograph.

Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology developed DCA2MC, a divide-and-conquer approach for model checking linear temporal properties. The method splits large verification problems into smaller, independently checkable tasks to address state-space explosion and improve performance through parallelization. A supporting tool is implemented in Maude and provides an environment integrating with external model checkers such as Spin, while a semi-automated method helps select effective layer configurations. Case studies demonstrated improved verification of larger state spaces.