Today, another video presentation was posted in the virtual public talk series Babelsberger Sternennächte of the Leibniz-Institute for Astrophysics, Potsdam (AIP). In this “Kommentarcheck” I answer some of the many great questions and comments – about things like dwarf galaxies, dark matter, and modified gravity – I got after my virtual talk “Dark Matter and the Dance of Dwarf Galaxies” (see here for original post).

Today’s edition of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung, one of the big German Sunday newspapers, features a whole double page on dark matter. It includes a long article by me on small scale problems of cosmology and planes of satellite galaxies.

Here is a link to the online version of the article: “Brauchen wir Dunkle Materie?“

Nature Astronomy published my comment on why planes of satellite galaxies are a problem for ΛCDM cosmology in their December issue. It is titled “It’s time for some plane speaking”, and part of their new collection on dwarf galaxies. It was a lot of fun to write such an opinion piece style text for a change, instead of the usual, more formal scientific articles.

You can access my article here.

And here’s the collection of articles on dwarfs galaxies. The collection will be further expanded with more articles during the month, and also contains a counter-comment on the satellite planes issue by Mike Boylan-Kolchin.

Interested in working and learning as part of an internationally diverse team at a fantastic research institute? I am currently advertising a PhD student position to work with me at the Leibniz-Institute for Astrophysics Potsdam (AIP), as part of my Leibniz Junior Research Group “Cosmic Choreographies – Studying Systems of Satellite Galaxies and Their Phase-Space Correlations”. Please see the full job ad (pdf) for more details.

Application deadline: December 31, 2021
Start date: around June 1st, 2022
Location: Leibniz-Institute for Astrophysics, Potsdam, Germany

Candidates who would increase the diversity of my group and the institute are especially encouraged to apply! Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions about this position or the underlying research.

A little while back I was interviewed by Susanne Päch for HYPERRAUM.TV, a German online TV site focussing on science and research related topics. The resulting video “Klein, aber oho!” on the topic of dwarf galaxies is now online on their website, and also accessible on YouTube.

The Klaus Tschira Stiftung published a press release (in German) portraying me, as one of those they support in collaboration with German Scholars Organization e.V. (GSO), in their series asking scientists six questions ranging from their research, what they learned during the pandemic, to what they wish from the funding fairy.