Plasma, particles, and astrophysics– at first glimpse, these terms might sound abstract. However, the brand-new planetarium program “Our Exotic Universe” shows that the results of these research study disciplines can be visually sensational. Researchers from the RAPP Center developed and executed the show together with the group at the Bochum Planetarium to commemorate the center’s tenth anniversary. In the brand-new program, visitors embark on a remarkable journey of discovery to severe locations of deep space. They find themselves in the midst of the residues of a star surge, see galaxies glowing in radio light, and experience how a star is torn apart at the edge of a huge black hole.
“We are really delighted to be able to present our operate in this manner and make it available to a large audience,” says Professor Julia Tjus, director of the RAPP Center and Teacher of Physics at Ruhr University Bochum. “Many of the images shown were taken by the scientists themselves, for instance with telescopes in Antarctica, on La Palma, or at CERN.” The production at the Bochum Planetarium was made possible through funding from the German Research Foundation (DFG): The research provided in the show belongs to the Collaborative Research Center 1491 “Cosmic Connecting Matter– From Source to Signal”. Beginning in 2026, it will likewise be showcased in other cities and abroad.
Cooperation at the RAPP-Center
At the joint research study center of the University Alliance Ruhr (UA Ruhr), the 3 partner universities have been merging their knowledge in particle, astro, and plasma physics and have actually been complying with partners from the University of Wuppertal because 2015. From TU Dortmund University, the research study groups of Teacher Johannes Albrecht, Professor Kevin Kröninger, and Professor Wolfgang Rhode from the Department of Physics, in addition to Professor Jens Teubner’s group from the Department of Computer Science Department are part of the RAPP Center.
At the research center, researchers are investigating subjects such as the origin of cosmic rays, how magnetic fields are developed in deep space, and the nature of dark matter and neutrino particles. In the future, the center prepares to establish new research study concerns in the field of artificial intelligence. Additionally, it will expand its research study to collision-dominated plasmas in which collisions between gas particles happen. These play a considerable role in astrophysics in particular places, near the Sun or in molecular clouds, and can be studied in the lab. The universities in Bochum, Dortmund, and Duisburg-Essen, which have actually been cooperating in the UA Ruhr considering that 2007, objective to work together much more closely in this area.
About the Program