Universe Cluster celebrates start into its second funding period

On November 1, 2012, the second funding period of the Excellence Cluster Universe officially started. Three weeks later, a kick-off celebration took place at the Ehrensaal of the Deutsches Museum. “During the last six years we achieved a lot, nevertheless, we still have several goals in mind for the coming five years. Therefore, we wanted to mark the transition from the first to the second Cluster period with a festive entrance”, the Universe-Coordinators Prof. Stephan Paul and Prof. Dr. Andreas Burkert explained.

The Deutsches Museum – an important Public-Outreach-Partner of the Universe Cluster – provided the perfect setting. The General Director of the Deutsches Museum, Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Heckl, as well as the presidents of both Munich Universities, Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. mult. Wolfgang A. Herrmann (TUM) und Prof. Dr. Bernd Huber (LMU) welcomed the 150 participants. Among the guests were representatives of the German Research Foundation (DFG) and the Bavarian State Ministry for Science, Research and Arts. Dr. Birgit Schaffhauser, Managing Director of the Universe Cluster, chaired the event and a quartet of the Garching Symphony Orchestra provided some musical entertainment.

Prof. Paul and Prof. Burkert presented the Cluster goals for the second phase 2012-2017. Highlight of the event was the compelling talk by the newly appointed director of the Max-Planck-Institute for Astrophysics, Prof. Dr. Eichiro Komatsu. An amazed audience learned, among other things, the correlation between Miso soup, the Big Bang and the cosmic microwave background.

During the following reception the guests were able to salute to the next five Universe years. To wrap up the evening, the audience visited the successful exhibition “Evolution of the Universe”, which was initiated in 2009 by the Universe Cluster and its partner institutions.