The Team behind the eROSITA DR1

My name is Alain Gueguen, I’m a satellite operator and scientific software programmer for the eSASS releases. Since my master in 2004, which I’ve received from the Paris-Meudon observatory, I have always been interested the “instrument control and monitoring”. This is what pushed me to work on software development data processing analysis for astronomical projects, both space and ground-based.

I focus on data processing / data analysis and instrument operations and use my skills in software development, system administration and database for this. For eROSITA, I’m a member of the operation team: Our tasks include daily contact with the telescope and assertion of its situation. I’m also a member of the eSASS software team, where I’m in charge of the integration and testing for the user release.

I was already involved in former projects Herschel and Gaia, so you can say that eROSITA is my third ‘trip’ to the L2 lagrange point.

I’m Christian Garrel, a French postdoctoral fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics. I received my Ph.D. in Astrophysics and Cosmology from the CEA Paris-Saclay (LCEG laboratoratory) where the core of my thesis was to perform the cosmological analysis of an X-ray selected sample of galaxy cluster and to develop a new detection pipeline for the XXL survey, an X-ray survey using XMMNewton observations.

My main focus is to study galaxy clusters and cosmological inference. My primary research interest is about observational cosmology using galaxy clusters as probes.

One interesting fact about myself: I didn't go to high school because I wasn't very interested in school. Until by chance I discovered my interest in maths and physics and resumed my studies.
If I were able to restart my academic life, I won't change a thing, and the only advice I can give you is not to hesitate to change direction, because nothing is permanent. I think as long as we have X-ray observations of galaxy clusters, I'll try to extract their cosmological information.

I spend my free time practicing my passion for cinema. Watching movies and reviewing them.

My name is Hannah McCall, and I am now an astrophysics PhD candidate at the University of Chicago in the US. I grew up in the Chicago suburbs, went to Washington University in St. Louis for my undergraduate degree in physics, and then studied for my Masters in astrophysics at Uni Bonn. I decided to study physics in college because I loved calculus and competing on the math team in high school, but I liked the questions being asked in physics research better than the ones in math. I am an avid reader and gobbled up popular astrophysics books like Stephen Hawking’s “A Brief History of Time”, which was responsible for planting the astrophysics seed. I love the big questions we ask in astrophysics, like how the Universe formed and evolved, and I love being involved in finding answers to those questions.

Generally I work in X-ray astrophysics, studying some of the most energetic processes in the Universe. These include galaxy clusters, which are many galaxies bound together by gravity, and active galactic nuclei (AGN), which are when supermassive black holes at the centers of galaxies accrete matter and spew out huge amounts of energy. I am the lead author of an eROSITA project that looks at one galaxy cluster in particular, the Virgo Cluster, which is the closest cluster to us. Since Virgo is so close, we can study it in more detail than other clusters. eROSITA is the perfect instrument for this project because its all-sky surveys let us look at the entire cluster, but it is also able to resolve smaller scale features so that we can see the details.

I don’t think I would make any different decisions if given the chance to go back. There were certainly research projects I enjoyed less than others, but you should never overlook the
importance of ruling out what you don’t want to do. I could never have predicted the journey so far, but I don’t think I would have wanted to do anything too predictable anyways. I would tell young scientists that if you think you are interested in research, don’t be afraid to try a project, even if you don’t think it’s a subject you would want to study for the rest of your life. If you’re at a stage in your life or career where official research projects are hard to come by, then conduct one on your own. Pick a topic you are interested in (any subject at all!) but don’t know much about yet, and try to find out more until you could explain the topic to someone else. A lot of skills that are useful for scientists in research can be built that way. You might doubt yourself a lot when you’re just getting started (I did), but if you enjoy the work and the discovery that comes with it, keep going.

I first came to Germany for a summer research project in Dortmund. At that point, I had not considered applying to graduate schools that weren’t in the US. My project was in particle physics, which didn’t turn out to be to my liking, but I loved my time in Germany, and I heard about eROSITA while there. In the end, of course, I returned and spent two wonderful years in Bonn, and my eROSITA project was much better suited to my interests!

When I am not working on research, I facilitate a mentor program at the University of Chicago for first year graduate students. I am also involved in a pen pal outreach program, where I exchange letters about science with a local fifth grader. My hobbies include reading, mostly science fiction and fantasy, and writing stories. Now that I am back in the Chicago area, I also enjoy spending time with my family.

My next big goal is to receive my PhD. After that, I would like to continue to work in academia. I hope my academic journey will take me back to Germany! I’m currently working on another project with Chandra data studying a sample of galaxy clusters and massive galaxies with AGN feedback. I’m also a member of the XRISM M87/Virgo team. XRISM is a JAXA/NASA X-ray telescope that launched last year and which will provide, for the first time, high resolution spectroscopy of extended sources. I’m excited to be working on the Virgo Cluster again so soon. It has become my favorite!

I’m Aafia Zainab, and I’m pursuing a PhD in Astrophysics after obtaining a master in Astro and Particle Physics at Uni Tuebingen. I’m from Chennai, a south Indian coastal city, where I also did my bachelor in Physics. I was always obsessed with reading and at around 13-14 years of age, I ran out of reading material and found an encyclopaedia on space science. I devoured it in a few hours and wanted to keep reading about the universe, which, along with a keen interest in physics, led me to wanting to pursue an academic career in astronomy. Many years later, I’m doing a PhD on eROSITA data, at Remeis Observatory in Germany.

I work on accreting neutron stars and black holes, which typically show up in X-ray binaries. Part of my job is to hunt for new compact objects with eROSITA, because we expect there to be millions of these sources in our galaxy, and while we can’t find all of them, we can at least find the ones eating from their companion stars. eROSITA is especially useful here as it helps us find the faint XRBs that could previously not be detected! My colleague in Tuebingen looks for these elusive objects in the survey, and I try to characterise them based on multi wavelength information. It is wildly confusing and a whole lot of fun.

I had the most excruciating time looking for pulsations in this source I’ve been working on, which showed other signs of being a neutron star, but frustratingly nothing too concrete! It has turned out the source has only become more interesting with the additional multiwavelength information we have come by, making it one of a class of only two sources. I’m still trying to decipher what all this means, so it hardly counts as a breakthrough, but it is certainly an exciting time.

For my future career, I have a few new XRB candidates I’m interested in working on, and definitely envision myself trying to answer some of their peculiar properties in the near future! I’m looking forward to what comes next. And if I was able to restart my academic life, I would change nothing. It’s been an amazing journey, and I am so glad to have gotten to work at the Remeis Observatory, with eROSITA data.

In my spare time, I read books whenever I can, both digitally and in audiobook format, although I cannot resist collecting more and more physical copies. I spend my weekends indulging in several art projects, from painting to crochet to macrame. I also bake a lot and provide baked goods for our regular board games evenings, which is one of my favourite ways to spend the evening, closely followed by relaxing at a fun new cafe. 

My name is Artur Avakyan, and ever since I can remember, I’ve always been spellbound by things which the Universe possesses. So, in 2015, I started my studies and education in Sternberg Astronomical Institute at Moscow State University (MSU), in parallel, working as a teacher, tutor, and physics museum guide. After graduation from MSU, my path led me to the University of Tübingen, where I still do my doctoral studies (as a 3rd year PhD student) on X-ray binaries (XRBs) with eROSITA. With its first data release, I am really looking forward to the tons of new content that we can bring to X-ray (and not only) astronomy.

Being a member of eroCompact and eroFollowup groups I focus on Galactic binaries, their identification among millions of X-ray emitting sources, follow-up observations with other facilities (such as XMM, NuSTAR) and corresponding studies. Along with that, I have experience in XRB/CV accretion disc outburst simulations, where different outflows take place. Additionally, I was involved in the creation of two new XRB catalogues (XRBcats: Galactic XRB Catalogues). Simply put all together, I investigate how binaries evolve, try to describe their population and corresponding accretion physics going in such systems. My particular interest is the implementation of machine learning (ML) methods in big data analysis, especially in relation to eROSITA/Gaia/CatWISE. I believe that considering the amount of sources detected by current all-sky facilities, the usage of ML methods is now becoming essential in our job. Such methods are the key for the proper cross-match between surveys and multi-wavelength data analysis in general.

Since I was a teenager, I have loved classical music and art in general (cinema, painting, etc.). Nowadays, finding free time can be quite difficult, but I like to spend it playing the piano or reading a book. Until recently, I also headed a small film club at the institute in Tuebingen. I also consider some computer games to be genius in the concept of art. And, of course, I like to travel (if I have money and vacation days), visiting places from movies/TV series which I love and taking photos of such places. I even have a plush toy (elephant named Astron), which travels with me everywhere. Even though I've started my scientific career relatively recently, if I were to start over again, I'd advise myself not to be so picky and to dig less into some things when it's not necessary.

My name is Zsofi Igo and I'm a Hungarian and Swiss PhD student in the eROSITA team at MPE. I received my Master's degree in Physics, with specialization in Astrophysics from Durham University, UK and then went to work as a Young Graduate Trainee at the European Space Agency in Madrid, Spain. Thinking back to the start of my astrophysics journey, to the nights spent stargazing in the dark flatlands of Hungary, I would have never imagined that now I get to work with some of the most brilliant minds in the field, whilst having the opportunity to travel around the globe learning about new discoveries and presenting my own research.

As a PhD student in the High Energy group, I love researching black holes, in particular the supermassive ones in the centers of galaxies. These are some of the most powerful and mysterious objects in the whole universe and we can observe their emission across the entire electromagnetic spectrum from radio to gamma-rays! I use X-ray observations with eROSITA and radio observations from other surveys to study the way supermassive black holes feed on the material in their vicinity and then shoot out powerful jets that can have profound impacts on the galaxy they live in, just like the jets in jacuzzis making the water all bubbly and turbulent!

Outside of astrophysics, I enjoy doing any and all types of sports (in particular gymnastics, unihockey and hiking), playing the flute, meeting up with friends and playing boardgames. Outreach and science communication are also activities I value highly, as I love motivating the younger generations into STEM fields. Lastly, as a student representative for MPE, I spend my time organizing scientific and non-scientific activities for the well-being of the students, which is a great way to bring together the diverse community we have here on the Garching campus. 

My advice to young scientists would be to do something that fills you with a lot of happiness, because then the rest will come naturally. And to never stop asking questions, there is always more to know!

My name is Miriam Ramos-Ceja. I am a Mexican astrophysicist. I received my bachelor’s degree from the physics department at the University of Guanajuato in Guanajuato, Mexico. In 2016, I was awarded a Ph.D. degree in Natural Science at the University of Bonn. After working as a postdoct at the Argelander Institute for Astronomy in Bonn, I moved to MPE to join the eROSITA Ground Segment team.

Since 2023 I am the head of the eROSITA Ground Segment, leading the eROSITA Operations and the eROSITA Software Development team. The operations team check and monitor the health of the eROSITA instrument. I am still amazed by being able to communicate with an instrument located 1.5 million kilometres away! The Software team develops the eROSITA Science Analysis Software System (eSASS), which is a collection of tasks, scripts and libraries that allow us to create eROSITA calibrated science data products and to perform various interactive data analysis tasks. My team is also responsible to perform the processing of eROSITA data, which are being released.

I have coordinated the eROSITA Early Data Release (EDR), and now partially coordinated the Data Release 1 (DR1). I hope scientists around the world can enjoy the released eROSITA data and discover new phenomena and astronomical objects!

My main research interests are the astrophysics of galaxy clusters using multiway-wavelength surveys, with special focus on X-rays. I have been working with galaxy clusters since my first summer internship during my bachelors back in 2007.

I am Dusán Tubín Arenas, a Chilean astronomer and Ph.D. candidate at the Leibniz-Institut für Astrophysik Potsdam (AIP). My research focuses on high-energy astrophysics, mainly with eROSITA and XMM-Newton X-ray missions. Currently, I am leading the search for supermassive black hole binary systems!

I started studying active galactic nuclei (AGN) during my bachelor's degree in Chile. Throughout my master's, I published my first first-author scientific publication, where we analyzed VLT/MUSE data of the particularly "happy" dual AGN, Mrk 739.
I have always been interested in galaxy evolution and the astrophysics behind AGN activity, pairs of supermassive black holes, star formation, and galaxy mergers. Now during my Ph.D., I have the chance to keep studying and searching for these fascinating and elusive supermassive black hole pairs!

In the collaboration, I am also leading the eROSITA upper limit project, which provides X-ray upper flux limits to any source within the German sky hemisphere even if the sources are not X-ray detected! Thus, every astronomer will be able to study the X-ray properties of variable sources, transients, or populations of objects selected in other wavelengths. Together with the DR1 and future eROSITA X-ray catalogs, the upper limit project will only increase the vast legacy of eROSITA in the X-ray universe.

One of the best astronomy-related experiences that I have ever had was the total solar eclipse in Chile in 2019. Astronomers were all over the news, the number of scientific talks increased dramatically in schools, and half of the country stopped what they were doing just to appreciate one of the most amazing natural events. It was inspiring to see that people of all ages got engaged and excited by astronomy and science in general. Academy and research are not always easy, so I would advise the new generation of scientists to take care of their mental and physical health and do what they are passionate about. Perseverance and honest work are always valuable when you are doing what you love.

My name is Sebastian Freund and I am a PostDoc at the Hamburg Observatory. Since my birth, I have a rare genetic neuromuscular disorder that causes a severe muscle loss. Hence, I am sitting in an electronic wheelchair and need a specialized care 24 hours a day. After graduating from school, I was looking for a profession that I can exercise mostly from my computer. Probably initiated by the movie "Back to the Future", I became very much interested in physics and astronomy since I was a child, and so I studied physics and specialized in astronomy.

In my diploma thesis, I worked on identification methods of stellar X-ray sources and thanks to the great support of my colleagues and my supervisor, I could continue with this research as a PhD student. The goal of my PhD project is to develop a method to identify all coronal stars that will be detected in the eROSITA all-sky survey with known completeness and reliability. With several hundreds of thousands of stars expected to be detected by eROSITA, this will be by far the largest sample of stellar X-ray sources ever obtained. With these data at hand, we can select specific stellar samples, e.g., in open clusters and stellar associations, and investigate their X-ray properties in a new and unprecedented way.

In 1999, I asked my parents to watch the total solar eclipse in southern Germany. So we started at 5 o’clock in the morning to drive more than 500 km to region where the total eclipse could be seen. I believe my parents thought it would be a very crazy idea to drive hundreds of kilometers just to watch an eclipse and they did not expect that other people might have the same crazy idea. So we ended up in the largest traffic jam I have ever seen. When the time of totality came, we were still on the highway with all parking lots filled. Against the warning continuously repeated on radio, all cars suddenly stopped on the hard shoulder of the highway and the people stepped out of their cars to watch the eclipse. Unfortunately, we were still slightly outside the region of totality so that we could not see the corona, the highlight of a total eclipse. Nevertheless, my parents were very impressed by the experience and thanked me afterwards for the great idea to visit the solar eclipse.

I’m Riccardo Arcodia and I come from Italy, where I studied astrophysics until my Master’s Degree. My positive experience at the University of Milan-Bicocca and the nearby observatory of Brera-Merate motivated me to pursue a career in research. Currently I am a postdoc fellow at the MIT Kavli Institute in Cambridge (USA) and I was previously a postdoctoral researcher at MPE, where I have also taken my PhD in 2021.

I am interested in studying accretion events black holes of different masses, from X-ray and optically bright active supermassive black holes to stellar-mass black holes, going through massive black holes in low-mass galaxies. Most of my efforts as part of the eROSITA team are dedicated to the discovery and study of new rare outliers in the family of accreting black holes in the nuclei of galaxies, the so-called quasi-periodic eruptions (QPEs, you can find some more info here).

My advice to younger scientists approaching the research world is to find a healthy work-life balance early on without diving too hard in what is surely a very exciting job, but just a job nonetheless.

I have been playing basketball since I was a kid, but now my 30-year old knees are complaining so I’m slowing down. In the past couple of years, I have taught myself to play guitar and it’s (veery) slowly improving! I also started to collect and listen to records, and I always try to buy local music everywhere I go.


 

I am Michael Yeung, a PhD student in MPE. I have lived most of my life in Hong Kong, obtaining both my Bachelor’s and Master’s from the University of Hong Kong. A little more than two years ago, I came to MPE to pursue my PhD.
I did not grow up looking up to the sky, pondering about the heavenly bodies and being mesmerised by the vastness of the Universe. I would say my interest is rather ‘by nurture’ than ‘by nature’. In fact, I bet the average sky area one sees in Hong Kong must be one of the lowest in the world given the numerous high-rise buildings. To put it simply, astronomy just did not come to my mind often. On the contrary, I aspired to be an engineer or architect, because they are useful, practical and respected. Life went on normally, I became an engineering student at University. But my mind started to shift after reading a few popular science books, and attending some interesting philosophy and astrophysics classes. Gradually, I have found studying astronomy quite an interesting and challenging thing to do, while simultaneously fundamental in answering humans’ deepest curiosities about ourselves and the Universe. After a year, I decided to switch my major to physics and astronomy, and have not looked back.

My main scientific field lies with the interstellar medium. With eROSITA and its all-sky surveys, one has the unique opportunity to study both the images and spectra of the local hot interstellar medium, as well as large-scale objects such as the eROSITA bubbles that are otherwise impossible to observe in their entirety by other present X-ray telescopes. My current research with eROSITA data focuses on dissecting the multiple astrophysical components that make up the diffuse soft X-ray background and constraining each of their physical properties. I am also responsible for characterising the eROSITA instrumental background in the form of the filter-wheel closed data that are released as part of DR1.

I have developed an interest in playing board games since coming to MPE. Along with friends from MPE and MPA, we play and/or test new board games every week. Some call football ‘the beautiful game’, because of its power to bring people together. To me this is true, I have been a football enthusiast since a very young age; but I would also call board games ‘the beautiful game’ because of what board games bring to me and some friends, who are working in different cities within the eROSITA-DE consortium, to gather during the evenings of consortium meetings to play board games and have fun together.
 

I am Emre Bahar. I work at MPE as a Ph.D. student with Dr. Esra Bulbul and Prof. Kirpal Nandra in the Clusters and Cosmology Group under the High-Energy Astrophysics Group. I received my bachelor's and master's degrees from Sabancı University in Turkey. Since I know myself, I have always been interested in understanding nature, which eventually led me to study astrophysics.

My research lies at the crossroads of observational astrophysics and cosmology. I am working on the X-ray observations of galaxy clusters and groups to constrain the physics governing these objects and the large-scale structure structure. For the eROSITA's first all-sky survey, I lead the efforts to understand the thermodynamic properties of galaxy groups and constrain the impact of AGN feedback on the intragroup medium. Aside from the projects I lead, I also take active roles in other collaborative studies within the Clusters and Cosmology Group in the eROSITA consortium.

The advice I would give to young scientists is that be aware that the academic path involves a lot of ups and downs and don't blame yourself too much during this journey. Like many things in life, science also involves situations that many of us have limited control over, such as being at the right place at the right time. One of my biggest desires about science is that it will be equally accessible to all.

Outside astrophysics, I enjoy cooking and watching movies in my free time. They help me free my mind from everyday struggles.

My name is Sara Saeedi. I come from one of the oldest and most beautiful cities in Iran, Shiraz, where the famous astronomer Abd al-Rahman al-Sufi has worked and observed the night sky and wrote "The Book of Fixed Stars"(كتاب صور الكواكب) more than 1000 years ago.
After obtaining my M.Sc degree in Iran, I moved to Germany and in 2016, completed my PhD at the Institute for Astronomy and Astrophysics, University of Tübingen (IAAT). I continued working there as a postdoc until 2019. Since then, I have been working at the historical observatory of Dr. Karl Remeis in Bamberg, which runs under the University of Erlangen-Nürenberg (FAU).

My current major field is observational astrophysics, in particular multiwavelength population study of sources emitting in X-rays: compact stars, X-ray binary systems, and accreting white dwarfs. In particular, working on the X-ray population studies has allowed me to gain expertise on different types of compact binary systems.
Together with Prof. Joern Wilms, I am the PI of population study of nearby galaxies project (at eRO_STEP_phase2) using the eROSITA all sky surveys.
We study the X-ray source populations in dwarf galaxies in the Local Group and in nearby normal galaxies dominated by accreting compact objects. This allows us for the first time to understand the populations of X-ray sources at the lowest luminosities in satellite galaxies of the Milky Way all the way to the brightest sources in further distant galaxies.
As an example of the most recent results of the eRASS1 data, we have studied the X-ray population of the dwarf galaxy Canis Major, the most massive and closest dSph to the Milky Way. Our result shows that there is a remarkable population of accreting white dwarfs in this galaxy.

I am interested in reading books in the fields of history (especially history of science), literature, and philosophy (my favorites are analytic philosophy, philosophy of science, and logic).
I also like botany. During my free time, I really try to explore what I can learn about it. Spending time with friends and family, who are the the most important in my life, is definitely a big part of who I am.
When it comes to sports, I like swimming and riding my bike. His name is "Parikal" and he is a daily loyal companion.
 

My name is Soumya Shreeram; I am an astrophysics PhD student working on the hot gas surrounding Milky Way-like galaxies. I come from India, and I’ve had quite a journey before I started my PhD here at MPE. I was originally inclined to pursue art and design as I enjoyed painting from a young age. However, in my last years of high school, thanks to some excellent teachers, I realised I enjoyed physics too, and here I am! I did my bachelor’s at the University of Manchester, UK and my master's at EPFL (Lausanne, Switzerland). I also did multiple research internships in astrophysics before deciding to do my PhD.

My research focuses on unravelling the hot gas properties in Milky-Way size halos, which have been studied to greater depths thanks to the advent of eROSITA. The main goal of my work is to constrain feedback processes in Milky-Way and M31 analogs based on the results of the model fitting as well as direct comparison between observations and hydro-dynamical simulations predictions.

Science offers an infinite world of questions that need to be answered by someone; the hard part is to choose the one that allows you to nurture your talents and explore your creativity.  For the young ones out there, take your time to explore what questions you’d like to unravel and if you’re wondering if you can do it, yes, you can!  

My name is Teng Liu. Since 2003, I studied at the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC) in the School of Gifted Young. I didn't know anything about astrophysics until I had to choose a major at USTC. I chose astronomy, which seems mysterious and far from reality. There are always many open questions in astrophysics, and it's a happy thing for me to find an answer or solution for them.

I am interested in any science that can be probed using X-ray data, e.g., AGN, galaxy clusters, and Galactic ISM. Beforing working with eROSITA, I worked on a few X-ray surveys, including the X-ray cluster survey using the Swift-XRT archive, the XMM-Newton SDSS-RM field survey, and the AGN spectral properties in the 7Ms Chandra deep field south survey. Between 2017 and 2023, I worked for six year at MPE. I mainly worked with the AGN group on eROSITA source catalogs and AGN X-ray spectral properties. Now, as a professor at USTC, I am still working on eROSITA projects, including X-ray AGN number density distribution across the sky, multiband follow-up and variability of X-ray AGN, and  properties of the eROSITA bubble.

I have no hobby, but I am very happy in my spare time because I have the best daughter in the Universe, who likes playing with me.
If I were able to restart my academic life, I don't have anything to change, maybe just work harder.
My advice to young scientists is: do your utmost and be happy!

My name is Thomas Reiprich, I am a professor of astrophysics at the Argelander Institute for Astronomy at the University of Bonn. I grew up in a small village in Germany and then studied physics in Paderborn, Kalamazoo (Michigan), and in Munich. Working at MPE in Garching, I obtained my PhD from LMU in Munich. My postdoc at the University of Virginia I had already started a few months before the PhD defense took place. After three years, I moved to the University of Bonn with a so-called Emmy Noether Fellowship, which allowed me to build up my own small research group. After this, a Heisenberg Professorship followed and since 2015, I have been regular professor in Bonn, enjoying teaching very much. Apart from eROSITA, I also work for the space missions Euclid and Athena.
I have always wanted to do astronomy but what I like about science in general is that, whichever scientific field one is curious about, if one digs just a bit deeper than the textbooks, one always finds a vast space of unknowns, an unlimited number of questions where no one has an answer to – yet!

Together with many great members of my group, I have been working for the eROSITA science preparation and exploitation for more than a dozen years in various functions. My main science interest is clusters of galaxies and cosmology. In particular, using the superb eROSITA telescope, my group members and I have been discovering emission filaments of hot gas that stretch vast distances (~50 million lightyears) across the Universe. Now we’re studying them – and also the very outskirts of huge nearby galaxy clusters – in detail with eROSITA, which is quite exciting.
Astronomy will strive in the future, for two main reasons. On the one hand, many large-area sky surveys at many wavelengths will come online and on the other hand, the artificial intelligence revolution will likely continue for a while – astronomy itself actually pushing it forward. These two together will transform the way we do science into a much more holistic approach, with great new insights to be gained, I’m sure, because we know by now that many things in the Universe are connected to each other and can’t be understood in isolation.

In the little spare time I have, I play a bit of rock music with my electric guitar as well as volleyball with a nice group of people.
Chance plays a role in life and, therefore, also in science. It is difficult to know what might have happened if I had taken different decisions in the past. To young scientists I’d give the advice to just follow your curiosity; something I have never regretted myself. Do your work well, be precise, true to yourself, and understand what you’re doing, and then be confident about it. More often than not you will find results that are not, or at least not quite, what you expected when you started. Your advisors or colleagues will likely come up with ideas what you might have done wrong because you obtained the “wrong” result. Take them seriously, and then disprove them!

My name is Sophia Waddell, and I am a Canadian PhD student at  the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics (MPE). Prior to moving to Germany, I did my Bachelor of Science in Astrophysics at Saint Mary‘s University in my hometown in Canada. I have always had a deep love for science and math, constantly reading and asking questions to my family, friends and teachers. Although I had originally signed up to do engineering in university, I knew from the first day of my first astrophysics course that I was in the right place. My professor ended up hiring me a few months later as a summer research student studying black holes, and I have been doing so ever since!

I study Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN), supermassive black holes at the centres of galaxies which are actively accreting, or building up, material. These black holes have masses millions to billions of times the mass of our Sun, and are so energetic and extreme that some can outshine all the stars and gas in their host galaxies. By studying these sources using the X-ray data collected by eROSITA, we learn more about the regions closest to the last hole, where the material is so hot it shines only in X-rays.

The advice I would give to young scientists or anyone insterested in science is that you should do what you are passionate about! Science is about curiosity, and every time you think you may have answered one question, ten more exciting new questions will be raised.  If I were to go back and change one thing in my science career, it would have been to give that advice to myself as a young student in school; never be afraid to be wrong, to ask questions, or to make mistakes. It is by far the best and only way to learn more about what you love!

My name is Catarina Aydar, I am a 2nd-year PhD student at MPE. I come from São Paulo, Brazil, and I did my Bachelor in Physics and my Masters in Astronomy at the University of São Paulo.
I ended up working in astronomy because I was always interested in science topics, and during High School, a teacher showed us the Moon and the planets through a telescope, which made me even more fascinated by looking up. When I entered University, I would often do courses in the Astronomy department and attend outreach activities, until I started doing research on black holes, and didn’t stop ever since. In my path, I also engaged with outreach programs (I am one of the coordinators of Astrominas, a project that teaches natural sciences to Brazilian girls between 14 and 17 years old) and in the organization of scientific events and conferences.
I am mainly interested in Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN), which are the observable consequences of a supermassive black hole growing by capturing matter. With eROSITA, we can study the high energy phenomena associated with that activity, and I work with the characterization of the population of these supermassive black holes that reside at the center of every massive galaxy. My role in the eROSITA project is to compare the information we have on X-rays from these observed AGN with the information we obtained with optical (the wavelength we see with human eyes) using another instrument, the SDSS. SDSS is a set of two ground-based telescopes, and I am one of the bridges of the collaboration between these two projects.

I am a student representative of the IMPRS program, so I use part of my time to organize activities such as symposiums, lunches, parties, yoga classes, and meditation sessions. I am passionate about dancing and I often engage myself in outreach activities, either by giving talks or by organizing events in which people can exchange ideas.
My main perspective is to finish my PhD with success, having published a few papers about what we can understand about the coevolution of black holes and the galaxies where they reside by using X-rays and optical. In the meantime, I hope to continue involving myself in activities to promote well-being among my colleagues and to keep engaging in outreach activities in person here in Germany and virtually in Brazil.
The two pieces of advice I usually give in my talks in schools are to be working with something that you enjoy doing, and to be surrounded by people you trust so you can get support in the difficult moments. And also, don’t be afraid of asking for help, we are all constantly in the process of learning, and science is  more about asking questions than already having all the answers.

 

My name is Axel Schwope, born in Berlin, studied in Berlin, PhD and habilitation also there. I am senior research scientist at the Leibniz-Institut für Astrophysik Potsdam (AIP) and head of the X-ray astronomy group. I am Privatdozent at the University of Potsdam, for a while I was adjunct faculty at NMSU (New Mexico State University).
I was always interested in reasons, why are things as they are? What can we know, at least in principle. What cannot be known. Astronomy was one way to deal with such questions in a professional manner. I’m still amazed what level of detail we find out about objects zillions of kilometers away by doing nothing else than measuring and weighing.

My interest is on compact objects with a specialization on close white-dwarf binaries and isolated neutron stars. This is also my field of interest in eROSITA because many of these are X-ray emitters. With eROSITA we expect to find the true population of sources while in the past we have perhaps merely discovered the bright exotic objects. Based on our new census we will quantify their role in the galactic context, quantify the high-energy output of the Milky Way, and create the observational basis to model the evolution of compact objects. In the German eROSITA consortium I serve on various committees, among them the working group ‘Compact Objects’, which I am happy to chair.
X-rays is just one aspect to study my objects of interest. To understand the physics of our objects fully, we need data from other wavelength ranges. I was very much involved establishing the art of Doppler tomography as analytical tool, based on optical spectroscopy of rotating objects. The velocity maps generated by these methods (see picture) fired our inspirations how mater interacts with magnetic fields in interacting binaries.

My greatest scientific moment was when I was sitting in the control room of the Danish 1.5 m telescope at ESO, Chile. We were observing new objects that were discovered with ROSAT, the predecessor of eROSITA. Suddenly the night assistant reported that our object was gone, it vanished from the TV screen, left no signal behind. Was a cloud covering the telescope? No, clear sky! Was the telescope dome shielding the clear sky? No, telescope was staring through the dome slit. Was there an instrument failure? No, it worked properly. We had to wait 10 minutes, then our object suddenly re-appeared as bright as before. We had discovered, just coincidentally, a super-deep, astonishingly long, eclipse of a compact white dwarf star by another star shielding it. Jackpot.
We are looking forward into the near future to identify all the precious new detections made with eROSITA optically with the SDSS5 and the 4MOST surveys and we are preparing ourselves for the next big thing in X-ray astronomy, the ESA L-class mission ATHENA.

In my spare time, I like singing, playing the guitar, hiking, and juggling.

My name is Matthias Kluge, I’m a postdoc at MPE. My fascination for astrophysics was sparked in 1999 during a partial solar eclipse near my hometown Schwerin in northern Germany.
From that grew an urge to understand the rules of the Universe, which grew stronger and stronger over the years. I did my bachelor’s, master’s, and PhD degrees at LMU. During that period, I became interested in observational astronomy, in particular, observing galaxies with professional telescopes that are much more powerful than my small amateur telescope. During my PhD project, I have enjoyed solitude during many long observing nights at the beautiful Wendelstein observatory in the Bavarian alps.

My task for eROSITA is the optical identification of the X-ray-selected galaxy cluster candidates. When I find a gravitationally bound overdensity of galaxies, I measure (amongst other parameters) the cluster redshift, which is a proxy for its distance from us.
My other research interest lies in understanding the build up of Intracluster Light, a large but ultra-faint stellar component that permeates galaxy clusters.

Besides eROSITA, I’m involved in measuring the Intracluster Light and other low-surface brightness features observed with the brand-new EUCLID telescope. Combining the powers of both cutting-edge telescopes, one optical and one X-ray, will expand eROSITA’s discovery power to higher redshifts and probe our cosmological models with even higher precision.

In my spare time, I currently enjoy photography and DJ-ing. I had tried more thrill-seeking activities like skydiving and motorcycle riding but interests change and I’m much happier now enjoying the simple things in life.
 

My name is Miltiadis Michailidis, and since I can remember, my father (a mathematician himself) has been teaching me mathematics (from reading every single car's plate on the road in elementary school to performing advanced computations with complex numbers, differential and integral calculus in high school). Although I initially planned to enroll in the Mathematics department at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (AUTH) for my Bachelor's degree, I soon realized that Physics provided me with greater joy. Consequently, I selected Physics as my undergraduate course, and, my interest in Astrophysics developed rather late, in my second year of Bachelor studies when I had the opportunity to play around with the University telescope for the first time, conduct my internship at NOESIS Planetarium, where I was able to use the Uniview fulldome software, i.e., an interactive computer platform designed for live presentation, which is powered by scientific databases and physically accurate visualizations producing visually striking journeys through databases of any scale (it simulates orbital motion with the same precision as NASA simulations for space missions), and getting acquainted with the world of Cosmology. After graduating from the Physics department at AUTH, with a specialization in Astrophysics, I joined the Tübingen University for my Master’s in Astro and Particle Physics in the High-Energy Astrophysics group of IAAT. Upon completing my Master's degree, I stayed in Tübingen, where I continue to pursue my doctorate, which is still in progress, in the context of the eROSITA science.

My primary academic interests lie in the interface of High-Energy Astrophysics, Cosmology, and Particle Physics. I am a passionate and active researcher in the Cosmology research field. In particular, I am interested in Dark Matter (DM) searches with gamma-ray instruments (Fermi-LAT, CTA). In addition, I have built a strong profile in High-Energy/Very-High-Energy Astrophysics (X-ray and Gamma-ray Astronomy & Astrophysics) with emphasis given on the analysis of extended sources (i.e., SNR), CRs and subsequently on galaxy evolution and its constituents. With eROSITA, when working complementary to GeV/TeV surveys, a new era of Galactic SNR  studies begins offering us the chance to gain further insight on important open questions of Modern Astrophysics that have been addressed before but are not yet solved, such as: up to which energies SNR efficiently accelerate particles, up to what age SNR can efficiently accelerate particles, what is the SNR contribution to the Galactic component of the CR spectrum and what is the Galaxy's contribution to the overall cosmic-ray spectrum?

Among my main hobbies (other than Astronomy), I enjoy playing chess, competing in advanced geography quizzes (where is the point of the Earth's surface that exhibits the largest distance from its center? (disclaimer: it's not Everest!)) and solving logic riddles with friends. It is also my intention to acquire a greater understanding of the philosophy of mathematics, thus, I am investing some of my free time studying the work of philosophers with important contributions in this field (e.g., Ludwig Wittgenstein). My interest in nature does not extend to exploring natural areas, but I enjoy playing football, having played semi-professionally during my time in high-school and during my first years in bachelor's.

My name is Silas Zelmer, I am a Ph.D. student in the High Energy Group at MPE. I am originally from Munich and received my Bachelor's and Master's degrees in physics from LMU Munich. I have always been interested in the frontiers of human knowledge, so it is no surprise that during my master's degree in theoretical particle physics I focused on the most fundamental foundations of this world, including quantum electrodynamics, quantum chromodynamics and general relativity. But on the other side of the scale, there is another extreme: the seemingly infinite vastness of our observable universe.

In particular, I find the formation of the large-scale structure with galaxy clusters at their intersections incredibly exciting. And indeed, both areas, particle physics on the smallest scales and cosmology on the largest scales, are inextricably linked - in 2019, the Dirac Medal was awarded for the groundbreaking discovery that the huge filaments of the universe emerged from the quantum fluctuations of the early, microscopic universe.
With its unsurpassed performance in the X-ray range, the eROSITA survey is an ingenious way to study galaxy clusters, as the million degree hot gas they contain emits bremsstrahlung that leaves bright disks on the eROSITA image. In the first All-Sky Survey (eRASS1), eROSITA has already detected several thousand clusters, allowing us to perform first-class statistical analyses of the composition of the Universe. In my current project, I am using the gigantic clusters to study the properties and abundance of a possible candidate for the as yet unexplained dark matter - an elementary particle called axion, which has not yet been directly observed. What excites me most about this project is that you can use the largest objects in our universe to study an elementary particle that is lighter than all the other particles we already know!

In my free time, I like to spend time with my wife, play the piano or do something else creative like writing poetry. Otherwise, I'm very active in the church, giving workshops there or meeting up with friends from there. Some other things you need to know about me include: I sometimes find myself scribbling some kind of derivation on the steamy shower wall with my finger, lost in thought and without any sense of time. Also, I am very passionate about tutoring and so it happens from time to time that even my wife has to listen to my long explanations of physical details... Well, she loves me anyway ;-)

 

My name is Johannes Buchner. I am a post-doctoral researcher, originally from Salzburg, Austria. I was curious about modern physics, and explored computers and programming in school (HTBLA for electronics). I chose to study astronomy at the University of Vienna in parallel to computer science at the TU Vienna. From that time onwards, I always studied the two fields, and also developed an interest in statistics. Sticking with the academic path long enough I became an expert in computational and inference methods in astronomy (astroinformatics and astrostatistics), which I apply to a wide variety of interesting astrophysics questions, related to gamma-ray bursts, the evolution of super-massive black holes and exoplanets.

I am excited about supermassive black holes that sit in the centers of galaxies and lunch on nearby material. They are mysterious, exotic objects and we know quite little about where they come from and how they alter their host galaxies. This is where I try to gain some insights with eROSITA and multi-wavelength data. eROSITA is extremely good at finding the most rapidly growing black holes, which may have the biggest impact on their galaxies. It already identified millions of these. I work on separating the instrument limitations (missing faint sources, noisy data) from what we can say about the population, including their growth over cosmic time and the very unstable, violent inflows. I enjoy developing modern data analyses techniques towards these goals.
In the future beyond eROSITA lies the next large mission, Athena. With extremely sensitive instruments, it will be able to find black holes in the early Universe, and hopefully be able to tell us something about their origin. I am chairing a scientific working group which characterizes the capabilities of Athena and scientific outcomes of surveys in ~2035.

Working as a scientist requires meeting strict delivery deadlines and getting things done. Therefore, it is important to develop time management and self-motivation skills. In the long run, diligence and programming skills pay off manifold.
However, science is not everything. In my spare time, I enjoy cycling, hiking, swimming, and juggling.

I am Jakob Dietl, a final-year astrophysics master’s student at the Argelander Institute for Astronomy, Bonn. Currently, I am working on my master’s thesis regarding galaxy clusters and cosmology. As I originally come from the Middle Rhine, not far from Bonn, I am very happy to be studying my favorite subject close to my home town. Ever since I was a child, I wanted to be a scientist and especially an astrophysicist, inspired e.g. by Stephen Hawking's children's book "George's Secret Key to the Universe".

In my bachelor’s thesis, I worked with data from the eROSITA all-sky survey, focusing on the galaxy cluster Abell 3667, which is known as merging system and is famous for its bright radio relics. Galaxy clusters are known to be the nodes of cosmic web filaments and can be seen excellently in X-rays due to the high temperature of their intracluster gas. The filaments however, have a much lower temperature and are challenging to observe. But thanks to eROSITA, we can also detect regions with low X-ray emission and thus we have discovered an X-ray filament between Abell 3667 and another galaxy cluster. This finding is unique and exciting as the discovered filament is exceptionally long. In the night sky, it extends over a length of 6 full moons. 

After completing my master’s thesis, I will pursue a PhD in astrophysics in combination with computer science and machine learning. As someone who works in data science, it is of outstanding importance to be familiar with coding and concepts from software development. Therefore, I intend to extend my knowledge in this field, which will gain more and more importance in the future.

In my spare time, I enjoy spreading the fascination about physics, e.g. in our physics show musical PLANETAMOS in Bonn. In this show, we demonstrate, embedded in a theatrical plot with live experiments and live music, which parameters enable life on our planet and how sensitive this balance is. I am also involved in various activities and events organized by the Young German Physical Society (jDPG) in order meet and enter the dialog with other young physics enthusiasts, from school pupils to PhD students. Besides my physics activities, I enjoy bouldering, juggling and making music.

 

I am Surangkhana (Suri) Rukdee, originally from Thailand. I am an instrumentalist at heart and a multi-disciplinary scientist. My research goal is to search for an inhabited world outside the solar system. To do so, I developed novel astronomical instrumentation to study exoplanet atmospheres, in particular molecular oxygen, and their environmental context. Besides the experimental work, I study stellar astrophysics. As exoplaneteers would say ‘know thy star, know thy planet’.

I am currently a postdoc scientist at PANTER/ MPE working on the characterization of X-ray Optics for Einstein Probe, ATHENA and other missions from around the world. In addition, I work on the star-planet interaction of terrestrial exoplanetary systems. Before coming to Munich, I had two beautiful years doing my postdoc at the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian where I worked as an astronomical instrumentalist. My research interests in experimental astrophysics include high resolution spectroscopy in X-ray, UV, optical and infrared for searching and characterizing exoplanets and their atmospheres, extreme precise radial velocity measurements and Fabry Perot Interferometers.
I received my B.Sc. in Physics and Material Science through a joint program with Geology from Chiang Mai University, Thailand. I obtained my M.Sc. in Astronomy and Space Science at the Korean Astronomy and Space Science Institute, where I participated in the design of the IGRINS mirror mounts. I completed my Ph.D. in an astro-engineering program at Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile. Our teamwork focuses on the design and development of Radial Velocity exoplanet hunters such as FIDEOS, TARdYS, and PLATOSPEC.

My current scientific field of interest is star-planet interaction. I am intrigued by how the high-energy environment might affect the atmospheres of exoplanets. Although I joined the eROSITA collaboration relatively late due to my duties in instrumentation, I successfully contributed to a paper for DR1 with the eRO-Star working group. Additionally, I am involved in publication preparation as an eROSITA editor. eROSITA proves to be a powerful instrument for monitoring the variable sky. In my study of exoplanet host stars, I utilized eROSITA data to observe the high-energy environment of intriguing systems around M-type stars. Characterizing high-energy radiation is crucial for understanding its impact on the atmospheric chemistry of planets.
I am advancing high spectral resolution interferometry-based instrumentation to study molecular oxygen in the atmospheres of rocky exoplanets, a capability currently unavailable with existing instruments, both ground-based and space-based. For X-ray instrumentation and observation, I’m looking forward to studying the high energy environment of rocky exoplanets with ATHENA, an upcoming mission which MPE is currently involved heavily in the telescope mirror development, characterization, and instrumentation on board.

Academic life has its ups and downs, which is normal. I see it as a form of self-development and a way to test your limits. One thing I would like to see more in academia is diversity and inclusion. As an underrepresented female scientist, I would like to advise young scientists not to let anyone tell you what you can or cannot do. Stay focused on your goals. Mental health is crucial in the long run, so practice setting boundaries, work smart, and maintain a healthy work-life balance.
I like cooking, swimming and dancing in my free time. I also enjoy cycling, hiking and camping with my husband.

 

My name is Yi Zhang. I come from Yantai, China, a beautiful city by the sea with perfect weather. I am always interested in exploring and learning things I don't know, and what could be more mysterious than astronomy? I received my bachelor's and master's degrees in Astronomy from Nanjing University, China. I am pursuing my PhD at the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics (MPE) in Germany.

At my master's, I was a theorist, working on the cosmic ray propagation models to explain the origins of the extended structures observed: from the 100 kpc scale of the circum-galactic medium (CGM) to the 100 pc scale of the TeV halos. For my PhD, I turn to the role of an observer, observing the hot CGM with the eROSITA, the exciting X-ray all-sky survey telescope. My current project is applying the stacking technique to obtain enough statistics to detect the hot CGM emission around Milky Way mass galaxies, and we did it. The X-ray surface brightness profiles and scaling relations we obtained would be the new benchmarks to constrain galaxy formation and evolution models.

I am happy about what I have achieved, and the advice I can offer to young scientists is to be happy about your decision and what result you obtained; things always get better.
About my perspectives for the future, I will continue my exploration of astronomy, doing postdocs in a new country or new continent.

In my spare time, I like to explore the surroundings. As I live in Munich, the exploration is in the Alps: I love hiking :). I like to travel around, try out new restaurants, games, and sports with friends, or stay in my cozy apartment, look after my plants, and try new recipes.

My name is Victor Doroshenko, and I’ve spent my childhood under dark skies near a 6m telescope, so I was always fascinated with how full of stars our Universe is. I graduated from Moscow State University and then moved to industry for a while, but returned for a PhD in Tübingen where I stayed ever since studying extreme sky in X-ray to TeV energies. First as a post-doc, and then as assistant of the head. I was involved in the development of a few missions, and was lucky to witness the development, the launch, and now beautiful data coming from eRosita. And I know that the current data release is just a beginning and it will take perhaps tens of years to fully exploit its content, which is fascinating!

I am helping to coordinate activities on studies of Galactic compact objects with eRosita, and also study them with other facilities (in X-rays and other bands). I try to understand where they come from, how they evolve, and what are their basic properties and how those affect accretion physics (producing most of X-ray emission). I am particularly fond of neutron stars and try to use them as probes for fundamental physics (equation of state of cold dense matter, properties of matter under extreme conditions, etc). I think that we’re in a golden era for neutron star studies, actually as we now have not only ability to study their spectra and variability with instruments like XMM and NuSTAR, but also their polarization with IXPE, and more of that is going to come soon with the likes of eXTP and Athena. And of course, eRosita is key to find more of the compact objects to study with dedicated observations!

I have always been fascinated by the magic of analogue photography and like to take pictures in general (including astro-photography, of course!). I also like exploring nature on foot and by bike together with my kids (the alps are beautiful, but so is Schwarzwald!). If I were to re-start my scientific career, I’d probably not change much, as the whole point of doing science is to have fun, and that’s something I always had! To make it more successful, however, I’d probably have to focus on the “career” aspect of it, but not at the cost of fun!

I am David Kaltenbrunner, an Austrian astrophysics and astronomy PhD student currently contributing to groundbreaking research at the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics (MPE). My journey into the cosmos started in primary school when my fascination with stars took root. As I progressed through my education, my interests expanded to encompass the entire spectrum of natural sciences, with a particular affinity for mathematics. Following my education at an Austrian engineering-focused high school, I pursued a Physics Bachelor's at the Technical University of Munich (TUM) and continued with a Master's in Nuclear, Particle, and Astrophysics.
Currently, I'm immersed in my PhD project at MPE, collaborating with the esteemed eROSITA team since 2021. Under the supervision and mentorship of Chandreyee Maitra, Frank Haberl, and Jochen Greiner, I am dedicated to advancing our understanding of the universe. My dedication and enthusiasm for unravelling the mysteries of the universe mark a promising trajectory in my scientific career.

Delving into the cosmos captivates my scientific soul. My research centres on unravelling the intricate tapestry of evolution across cosmic scales, from planetary systems to the vast reaches of the universe. I also find beauty in extremes—exploring physical parameters around celestial wonders, from compact objects like black holes to the radiant brilliance of normal stars.
My expertise lies in the realm of High-mass X-ray binaries (HMXBs), where I'm pioneering the construction of the first-ever comprehensive catalogue for the entire Large Magellanic Cloud. Leveraging data from eROSITA's groundbreaking first all-sky survey eRASS1, set for release during DR1, I'm unlocking the secrets of high-energy phenomena. This venture aims to help us understand the connection between star formation history, metallicity and the formation of HMXBs.
In my spare time, I like Exploring Nature (Whether it's conquering trails, backpacking through scenic landscapes, or immersing myself in the great outdoors for a week or two, I find solace and adventure in nature), Music (Grooving to tunes, hitting up concerts, jamming on instruments, or dancing on the floor, music is my heartbeat), Card and Board Games (From strategic battles to friendly card games, I love the thrill of competition and camaraderie that comes with a good board or card game) and Reading (I'm a bookworm at heart, especially drawn to the suspense of thrillers, the intrigue of detective stories, and the boundless realms of fantasy novels. Whether it's solving a mystery, getting lost in a fantastical world, or simply enjoying a good page-turner, you'll often find me immersed in the pages of a gripping book).
Life's a mixtape of music, adventure, games, and captivating stories, and I'm here for all of it!

My name is Federico Zangrandi, I am a PhD student at the Dr. Remeis observatory of Bamberg. I am italian and I am coming from a small villange in the north, near the Garda lake. I started my career studying physiscs because I was interested in learning how the nature was working. For my master I moved in Bologna and I discovered to love astrophysics. I love how many information you can learn on the nature, just looking at pictures that are also extetically astonishing. I quote one of my professor saying „we study the galaxies because they are beatiful“ . I think that one of the motivation that makes you work hard despite the possible frustration of a difficult job as being an astrophysicist is the beauty of the astronomical image we are working on daily.

I am in general interested in the diffuse emission of the galaxy and supernova remnants, but also on the galaxy formation and evolution. Corrently I am working with eROSITA on the population of supernova remnant in the magellanic clouds. Understanding the property of the population of supernova remntant in a galaxy is fundamental to understand the interation between the violent explosion of the stars and the interstellar medium. This interaction can influence the star formation of the galaxy itself in addition the supernova remnant are responsible for the chemical enrichment of the interstellar medium and they are an important source for the kinetic energy in the interstellar medium. With eROSITA was possible to look at the entire extention of the Large Magellanic Cloud with an unprecedent sensitivity in X-ray. Thanks to the great coverage of the LMC and its environment, we have detected many new faint SNRs in the LMC and even SNRs in its peripheries, indicating that there are stars which were either kicked out the galaxy or stripped from the galaxy due to tidal interactions of the LMC with the Milky Way.

During my free time I like to read books not only science releted but about almost every topic. Sometimes I’m joggling. I like to make long walks just to relax, sometimes listening a
podcast. I play video games. I also like watching old movies, expecially in the movie theater. Coming back to the science related, I enjoy to outreach astronomy with friends and during the public tours that occur at the observatory.

My name is Mara Salvato and I am italian. With a master in astronomy from the University of Padova I moved to Potsdam for my PhD in astrophysics. After a postdoc at MPE and one at Caltech, in the USA, I became junior research leader at the MP for Plasma Physics in 2009, here in Garching. Since 2012 I work at MPE where I am now member of the scientific permanent staff.
The motivation that drives my work has changed with time. Unlike many colleagues that knew they wanted to be astrophysicists “since ever”, I discovered astronomy and astrophysics at the end of high school, when I was actually studying for becoming a carpenter (!). I had no idea that astronomy as the topic even existed and for years my motivation has been driven by the need of placate a thirst for knowledge in the field that I did not know I had. With time the motivation changed and now I am driven by the recognition that with my work I am helping the advancement of knowledge by future generations of scientists.

I study AGN, i.e., galaxies that host an Active Black Hole in the center (most of the galaxies do host a Black Hole, but it is dormant). Back to 25-30 years ago this kind of galaxies where of interests to few astrophysicists while the majority removed them from their samples as much as they could. Now we know that this is the wrong approach because virtually every galaxy experienced or is experiencing (or will experience) a phase in which their BH is active. The AGN phase is longer than our life time so the only chance to study these events is to take a statistical approach: take a big samples of galaxies and try to sort them out from an evolutionary point of view. eROSITA is ideal for purpose because it detects the galaxies in which the BH is in the “AGN phase”. And because we are passing over the same part of the sky over and over, we are getting lucky and are identifying galaxies where the phase is just ending, or starting.
For eROSITA, in addition to be spokesperson, I am chair of the “Follow-up” working group. There we gather the photometry at various wavelengths for the point sources that eROSITA detects and with experts from Galactic and extragalactic astrophysics we try to agree first on what the source is. For the sources that we agree are probably AGN I then try to estimate their “distance” from us using a secondary method, called “photometric redshift”, the “spectroscopic redshift” being the primary. As soon this estimate of the distance is ready, I distribute it to the collaboration because any other scientist in the field needs this information in order to continue the research.

After the PhD I got hired for working on Diva, a German mission that was a precursor of Gaia. So my destiny was to work on stars, not AGN. However, few days before the beginning of the postdoc, the mission was cancelled and suddenly I had no job and I really had no idea what to do. I was at loss. Following the suggestion of a friend of mine I sent an open application to a new group at MPE that had nothing to do with AGN, but at that point a job in the field was more important than “on what”. I got contacted few months later, and after the interview I got an offer. I could not believe it ! I printed the offer and I went to my colleagues at AIP and asked them to sign it, because only in that way I could believe that it was not a dream (I still have the document with the signatures, btw...). To make the story short it is what I have learned in this group that changed by professional profile and brought me where I am today
Who I am today is the results of all the other decisions that I took along the way. I like who I am and a change in the path would make me different, not necessarily better. One advice to young scientists? It does not matter what you do. The difficult part in life is to take a decision. And it is much easier to accept the consequences of any decision if the decision is your own and not taken because of your parents or family or because you are afraid of being different or because you are afraid of the amount of work ahead. I had to fight for my choices, I took probably twice as long as for some of my colleagues to be where I am today, but I am where I wanted to be.

In my sparetime I bake bread (I started well before the pandemic made it a fashion) and I like to cook and eat with my husband. I do jewelry (with resin and beads and clay) and no day passes without reading few pages for fun (mostly fantasy books). In my role of equal opportunity officer at MPE I am engaged in activities that promote equal opportunities for women in general and in STEM in particular. It amazes me to see how girls and women in STEM are still considered an oddity rather than the norm! For contributing to the change in the narrative I try to create projects for young girls that through internships in our group learn about physics and astronomy in particular. I am happy to see that some of the pupils from the past are now earning their PhD. I wish them to be able to continue on this path.

I am sure that eROSITA is going to be the main driver of my research for the next decade. eROSITA will be combined with all the upcoming surveys at other multiwavelength (like Euclid and LSST) and the “fun” will continue. Also because the sample of AGN will be huge and finally I will be able to apply to the analysis methods based on Artificial Intelligence, something that I am interested in since my time at the university. And after eROSITA there comes Athena, ESA’s next large X-ray observatory…

My name is Marcus Brüggen and I am Professor for Extragalactic Astronomy at the University of Hamburg. My astronomy journey led me here via Cambridge/UK, Garching and Bremen. I am interested in many aspects of high-energy astrophysics and wanted to be an astronomer for as long as I can remember.
My main interest lies in galaxy clusters and I am a member of the cluster working group in eROSITA. I’m also interested in fluid dynamics, plasma physics, the non-thermal universe, active galactic nuclei and particle acceleration. In particular, my role is compare the X-ray data to data from radio telescopes which gives us valuable information about the plasma that fills galaxy clusters.
In my spare time, I like to play tennis and mountain biking.
 

I am Ang Liu, an astrophysicist working at MPE. I got my PhD in astrophysics in 2019 at Sapienza University of Rome. After that, I worked as a postdoc in INAF-Arcetri Astrophysical Observatory for one year, and then moved to the high energy group at MPE in 2020.

I am a member of the eROSITA cluster and cosmology group since 2020. My major role in the team is constructing galaxy cluster catalogs from eROSITA surveys. In particular, I am responsible for the X-ray data analysis of the eROSITA clusters. I also use these large samples of galaxy clusters to study superclusters and the large-scale structure of the Universe. In addition to large-area surveys, I am also interested in other topics on galaxy clusters, such as the thermodynamic and chemical properties of the intracluster gas, and their connection with galaxy evolution.

In the future, I will be working on X-ray astronomy for a long time. I am involved in ongoing and upcoming X-ray projects including the Einstein Probe (EP) and Hot Universe Baryon Surveyor (HUBS). I will use these instruments to perform more studies on galaxy clusters.

My name is Michael Freyberg. I was born in Weilheim and spent my childhood in small villages in the South and North of Munich, with clear nights. At the age of 10 I had to write an essay about what I want to be, and I answered I wanted to become an astronomer. Years later I got my degrees at Technical University and LMU in Munich, in physics, with diploma and PhD theses at MPA and MPE in Garching.

Originally I was dreaming of doing analytical research on cosmological questions. But then I had to replace pen and paper by supercomputers, and also to deal with real hardware like testing silicon pore optics or eROSITA mirror shells. Since the ROSAT era I was working towards a successor mission, as some questions could not been answered, and finally eROSITA is able to answer some of them.

My scientific interest is in the structure of the Milky Way, the hot gas that surrounds our solar system and is bright in X-rays -- though of low surface brightness and thus not always easy to observe, due to other unresolved components in the foreground and in the background. So I am also contributing to the eROSITA background working group.

Any anecdote or advice? When I was working as a PhD student on the very first ROSAT all-sky maps  I saw a red extended object close to the Galactic center direction, but could not find an obvious counterpart for that in any catalog. I was told that this may not be interesting, maybe some white dwarf or so. Several years later, after discovery of cometary X-rays from Hyakutake, it turned out that this feature was actually comet Levy. So if you find something which cannot be explained by others, do not regard this as uninteresting!

By the way, to close the loop, the ground station for communication with ROSAT was located at Weilheim (sic!) and it was also an unforgettable moment to see that sending a command via DLR to the PSPC turned the filter wheel and the bright Earth could be seen in X-rays during that ground contact seconds later in real-time.

My name is Martin Mayer, and I am originally from a picturesque small town in upper Bavaria, called Burghausen. As a kid, I always wanted to become an astronaut to explore the night skies and see stuff no human has seen before. After high school, I moved to Munich to pursue my bachelor’s and master’s degrees in physics at TUM. I finished my PhD, which I pursued at MPE, last year, and have recently moved to Bamberg, where I am now a postdoc at the Karl-Remeis observatory (part of FAU Erlangen-Nürnberg).
As it turns out, life as an astrophysicist is not that different from my childhood dream, just that I get to explore unseen objects from my desk rather than a space ship.

I am interested in the study of stellar endpoints, particularly neutron stars and supernova remnants, and hot interstellar medium from an X-ray point of view. Thanks to eROSITA, we are able to observe extended and diffuse objects which would be too large for other X-ray telescopes, and study the million-degree hot plasma in them.
Since it is a survey mission eROSITA also allows us to provide a homogeneous of objects on the entire X-ray sky. For DR1, we have used this to search for X-ray emitting pulsars, rapidly rotating magnetized neutron stars, among sources known to emit gamma-rays.

Until now, I’ve been very happy with my academic career. In particular I do not regret choosing to work on data from a new mission such as eROSITA, as it opens up brand-new perspectives on X-ray astronomy. 
In the near future, I plan to use my time at FAU to broaden my scientific expertise, in particular also to expand my knowledge from X-rays to other wavelengths in the study of my favorite astrophysical objects.

In my spare time, I enjoy playing squash at a tournament level, as it combines the technical and strategic components of games like tennis with the fitness component required for running around in a room for an hour. I also enjoy playing board games and watching movies.

I am Chandreyee Maitra, an astrophysicist/astronomer at the high energy group at MPE. I am from India and did my PhD in astrophysics from the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore, India. After that I moved to CEA Saclay in France where I worked for a few years as a postdoc for the XMM Newton Survey Science Centre. I joined MPE in 2016.
I have always been interested in space sciences and astronomy since childhood, and would read up whatever articles or popular science books came to my reach. Nevertheless I chose the more conventional path and did my Bachelor’s in Electronics engineering. During the third year of the course I was selected for a summer school in astronomy at a research institute in India. I jumped to the opportunity and this eventually paved the path to chase my dreams of becoming an astrophysicist and I have never looked back since.

I am a member of the eROSITA software and operations team. My role is that I lead the data processing of eROSITA. Apart from that I am also involved in scientific activities and work on end points of stellar evolution. Particularly with the data from the eROSITA mission, I have been working on the understanding source population of the Magellanic Cloud system. Only a small-fraction of the entire Magellanic Cloud System (which covers nearly 200 square degrees on the sky) was covered in the X-ray regime (at energies > 2 keV) until a few years ago. eROSITA has provided the first complete view of the Magellanic Clouds. We have already made several interesting discoveries to uncover the source population in the Magellanic Cloud, in particular I point to this very interesting discovery that comprises my DR1 publication . We have discovered a double-degenerate ultra-compact binary consisting of two white dwarfs in a. very close binary orbit. These are extremely rare objects which allows to probe the binary evolution at the most compact phase. In addition,  such systems are  very promising emitters of continuas gravitational waves and will be prime targets for future missions such as LISA.
The eROSITA data from the all-sky survey is just the tip of the iceberg. We have obtained ~ 4 times deeper coverage of the X-ray sky from 2019-2021 and in near future will concentrate on projects exploiting this wealth of information, also combining it with multi-wavelength data. This would also provide the groundwork for next generation missions such as Athena and HEXP.

I am a trained Indian classical vocalist and try to keep up with my practise during my spare time. I am also interested in the conservation and preservation of traditional Indian music and have recently ventured in this domain. Besides, I like travelling, hiking, and reading.

My advice to young scientists: Do not be afraid to pursue your dreams and take risks. Even if the way forward seems difficult, hard work and persistence will always bear fruits. What seems like a dead end can lead to new avenues if one keeps a keen and open mind.
 

My name is Steven Hämmerich and I am a 4^th year PhD student at the Dr. Karl Remeis-Observatory of FAU, additionally I manage the office of the German astronomical society. I obtained my BSc and MSc degrees at FAU as well working with Uli Heber on horizontal branch stars, afterwards I transitioned into the field of X-ray astronomy being a PhD student in the group of Jörn Wilms. In school I was always fascinated by physics and math, especially the astrophysics course I took during my last year was a real game changer. My teacher Mr. Dickel had such a great passion for astronomy and even organized trips to the country side for observing. Therefore I enrolled at FAU, attending as many astronomy lectures as possible. The field of astronomy is very unique since it combines so many different sub-disciplines of physics and math, while still being absolutely interesting and fascinating for everyone. Exploring the universe is simply fun, therefore I decided to become an astrophysicist.

My research focuses on a sub-class of active galactic nuclei (AGN) called blazars. Blazars are the most luminous objects in the universe and therefore display many different interesting properties. Some AGN are able to launch outflows called jets and in blazars these jets are directly approaching us. Up until now it as not been possible to study a large number of theses sources in a systematic way using an X-ray telescope. eROSITA therefore is a unique opportunity to study the entire population of blazars and their X-ray properties. In order to learn more about blazars I study these objects using data from eROSITA as well as many other telescopes.

My advice to young scientists is, talk to as many colleagues as possible early on. This will help you seeing your own project more clearly and will challenge you and your work. And use memes! At my institute I started a meme-wall in my office and also used memes in my conference talks and MSc. Thesis. A good talk should always contain at least one meme. 

In the future, I will continue to work on the eROSITA blazars. Next to the population studies a few very interesting sub-projects are in the works.
During my free time I like to read and spend time with my family and friends. I love photography and like to take pictures of many different things, including astronomical objects.

 

My name is Efrain Gatuzz, and I am a professional astronomer from Venezuela. I completed my Ph.D. in Physics at the Venezuelan Institute for Scientific Research (IVIC) under the guidance of Dr. Claudio Mendoza and Dr. Javier García, focusing on the analysis of interstellar medium X-ray absorption using high-resolution X-ray spectra. Following my doctoral studies, I pursued postdoctoral research at the Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics (MPA), European Southern Observatory (ESO), and currently at the Max-Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics (MPE). Since childhood, my fascination with astronomy and other space sciences has been unwavering. During my teenage years, I uncovered the prospect of pursuing a career as a professional astronomer by completing a Ph.D. in Physics. This realization was a strong motivation, propelling me to conclude those studies successfully. Despite my country's challenges in recent decades, this opportunity has presented numerous possibilities for which I will always be grateful.

The data collected by eROSITA presents an excellent opportunity for studying X-ray absorption on different scales, given the abundance of X-ray sources available for analysis. I am currently leading two projects in this regard. The first involves using X-ray spectra from blazars and quasars to study the intergalactic medium (IGM). We can measure the IGM absorption between the observer and the sources using these objects as X-ray background lamps. Our study allows us to investigate the IGM evolution by measuring absorption as a function of redshift. The second project utilizes X-ray spectra from galactic sources (i.e., stars)  to study absorption due to the interstellar medium (ISM) in our galaxy, the Milky Way. This study has enabled us to measure the relationship between dust and the gaseous component of the ISM and construct a three-dimensional map of the local ISM distribution. Additionally, this work serves as a foundation for studying habitable zones around the analyzed stars.

In my spare time, I enjoy writing and have published four books in recent years: "Nueve Planetas" (2020), "Kairoscopio" (2021), "El Viaje de Tame" (2022), and "Red Profunda - El sueño de Soto" (2023). Although they are in Spanish, I plan to translate them into English soon. I also play various musical instruments and have released two albums with my rock band Gatuzz: "Truths in the Foreground" (2021) and "Katharsis" (2022). As Christian believers, my wife and I lead the AVIVA Augsburg church, where we conduct our meetings in Spanish.

I am actively engaged on social media, particularly on Instagram, where I regularly post about the life of a professional astronomer. Additionally, I have a Twitch channel where I conduct interviews with fellow astronomers. I am keen on sharing our experiences beyond research, including our profession's positive aspects and challenges. In this regard, young scientists should be well-informed about these aspects and, above all, should enjoy the journey.

My name is Emanuele Perinati. I'm from Italy where I got my Ph.D. in Physics at the University of Palermo, with a thesis on modelling the energy thermalization in superconducting absorbers for X-ray microcalorimeters. After having spent a few years at the INAF institutes in Palermo working in the framework of the IXO mission (the former ATHENA), in 2010 I joined the group at the University of Tübingen and the eROSITA collaboration.

My research interests mainly focus on the investigation of the radiation environment in space and its effects on the instrumentation, such as the induced radiation damage and particle background. I´m a member of the eROSITA background WG and I´m involved in these studies for eROSITA as well as the future ATHENA mission.

In my spare time I like to play tennins and trekking in the beautiful Black Forest region.

I am Emmanuel Artis, astrophysicist at MPE. I received my Ph.D. from the CEA Paris-Saclay. I then moved to Grenoble at the LPSC, before starting to work in the high energy group.
We are lucky to live in an era where large astronomical surveys like eROSITA are flourishing in many different countries. We can thus expect great discovery to be made in the next decades. It is a privilege to be part of it!

I have been a member of the eROSITA galaxy cluster working group for a year. My main subject of interest is the inference of cosmological parameters with galaxy clusters. I use the constraining power of the clusters detected by eROSITA to explore alternative theories of gravitation and potential deviations from general relativity. 
For the moment, we find that general relativity still describes our observations.
I am also interested in multi-wavelength observations of galaxy clusters, to study the intracluster medium and to measure de expansion rate of the universe.
In the future, I will keep working on galaxy clusters, in synergy with other large surveys like Euclid

I play different instruments, like the flute or the trombone. I also enjoy hiking in my free time.
 

My name is Konstantinos Migkas and I am a postdoctoral fellow at Leiden University. I come from Thessaloniki, Greece, where I did my undergraduate studies in Physics. I then moved to Bonn, Germany, where I completed my Masters and PhD in Astrophysics, as well as my first postdoc position. In 2023, I moved to Leiden Observatory as an Oort fellow.

My main scientific interest lies in observational cosmology and galaxy cluster studies, using X-ray observations. I am especially interested in studying if the local Universe is consistent with the so-called Cosmological Principle, i.e., if the Universe behaves the same in all directions or not. eROSITA will offer unprecedented insights on that topic, since it has already discovered thousands of new galaxy clusters, which are a valuable tool for such studies. I lead an ongoing eROSITA project on trying to answer this question. To do that, we need accurate temperatire measurements of the hot gas in galaxy cluster. My current role in this eROSITA DR1 splash, is to provide the first robust cross-calibration of eROSITA against other X-ray telescopes, such as XMM-Newton and Chandra. For that, on 31st of January, I’ll present a paper that compares the galaxy cluster gas temperatures as measured by eROSITA, XMM-Newton, and Chandra. This comparison will allow us to eliminate any systematic biases that might occur from the different sensitivities of different X-ray telescopes when one measures such gas temperatures. There is a systematic offset betwenen different telescopes, with a still unknown cause. But this work enables us to precisely correct for this offset and freely combine data from different telescopes to improve our cosmological and astrophysical constraints. I am very happy I could lead such an important project for the eROSITA collaboration and I'm hopeful it will help many X-ray astronomers around the globe with their studies.

My MSc thesis started as an effort to confirm that galaxy clusters trace a local Universe consistent with the standard cosmological model. The findings revealed some directional anomalies that were not supposed to be there. They were so surprising that we tried to find the error in our analysis. Eventually, this study was also the focal point of my PhD, and led to much success. Numerous of press releases came out of this and vast media coverage. Eventually, the „failure“ to confirm the standard cosmological model in my Msc studies, was the building block of my academic career.

My main perspective is to signifantly advance the use of galaxy clusters and X-ray observations for cosmological studies in the local Universe. I work on several aspects of this goal, including the use of simulations, radio and microwave observations, etc, and I believe that in the near future we’ll see really interesting results. 

I am fortunate enough to not wanting to change anything in my academic life so far. I was lucky to have fantastic supervisors and collaborators this far. The no 1 advice I’d give to young scientists, is to follow their scientific path for as long it makes them happy. The best science is done from people that enjoy what they do. Put your personal needs first, and if they align with pursuing a scientific career, your contribution will be valuable. If there is no such alignment, don’t be afraid to pursue your other dreams. Science should be fulfilling and enjoyable, not „obligatory“.

My personal time mostly goes to my young son and my family. I also play basketball regularly, and try to read as much as possible. I am also part of a science communication team in Greece, where we try to bring together the general public will all the latest advancements in astronomy.

My name is Johan Comparat, I am a researcher at MPE. I come from Grenoble France (in the middle of the alps). I grew up in the mountains and I enjoyed the skiing, mountaineering and climbing possibilities. I have always been puzzled by the mysteries the Universes poses to us and wanted, already in high school, to participate in solving them. I got my PhD in 2013 (LAM, CNRS, Marseille, France), and after a three-year post-doc in Madrid, Spain (a beautiful place!), I arrive to MPE, Garching to endeavor the Universe in X-rays.

I am interested in the large-scale structure subtended by galaxies in the Universe and in particular how it looks in the X-ray wavelength range. I have a few favorite scientific questions: what is dark matter? What drives the accelerated expansion of the Universe? what is the role of the hot circumgalactic medium in galaxy formation and evolution, and its possible implication in the emergence of the galaxy bimodality? How do active galactic nuclei populate the cosmic web of dark matter haloes? The eROSITA observatory has unique capabilities and the interpretation of its observations should bring answers to these questions.

In my spare time, I enjoy spending time with my family, playing music (piano, accordion), reading, sports (climbing, judo).

My name is Esra Bulbul. I am a Turkish-American astrophysicist. I was awarded a Ph.D. degree in astrophysics at the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center. After working as a postdoctoral fellow at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, and MIT, I moved to the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics as a staff scientist in 2019. My love for physics and dark, starry skies led me to a career in astrophysics.

My role in the eROSITA collaboration is as the chair of the clusters and cosmology working group. I am the lead scientist for cluster science and cosmology for eROSITA and hold the position of group leader in the same field at MPE. My expertise is centered around the application of multi-wavelength surveys of galaxy clusters in cosmological research, as well as the studies of large-scale structure and astrophysics. In 2020, I received an ERC Consolidator grant, a pivotal factor in the realization of the eROSITA catalog and cosmology papers. This grant has also allowed me the opportunity to assemble a talented and amazing team of students and postdocs, with whom I enjoy collaborating at work but also enjoy spending time outside of work.

If I were to begin my academic journey, I would follow the same path without any changes. Throughout my academic tenure, I learned that maintaining a positive mindset and attitude when confronted with challenges is the key to success. Eventually, all the hard work pays off for the ones who are patient. Additionally, I consider myself fortunate to have encountered two exceptional mentors who played pivotal roles in guiding me throughout my career. For junior scientists, my advice is to actively seek out and surround themselves with supportive colleagues as they navigate their academic journey.

My name is Angie Veronica, a PhD candidate in the Dark Energy group led by Prof. Reiprich at the Argelander Institute for Astronomy of the University of Bonn. I am from Indonesia and I came to Germany to pursue higher education. I obtained my bachelor’s degree from Leipzig University. During my last year of bachelor's, I got the chance to learn about Astrophysics formally. Afterwards, I did my master’s degree in Astrophysics at the University of Bonn, where I learnt about X-ray observations and more specifically about galaxy clusters.
I love Astrophysics because it gives me an opportunity to study the Universe and various objects and phenomena in it. It combines various branches of science and it makes me think about how things one cannot even see with naked eyes work. Also, it is fascinating that I get to work with the largest laboratory provided by the Universe itself.

My main interests are galaxy clusters and AGN. In my previous works, I studied the cluster outskirts and new filaments discovered in the A3391/95 cluster system using eROSITA
Performance Verification observations. At the moment, I am working on one of the closest galaxy clusters to us, the Centaurus cluster, using eROSITA All-Sky Survey data. Thanks to
these new data, we have a fantastic view of the cluster and its surroundings, and we can study the cluster in detail further outward. 

I enjoy reading and writing, particularly novels and poetries. I also love travelling and visiting some historical sites, museums, and art galleries. The latest hobbies I picked up are tennis and acrylic painting.
All the decisions I made have brought me here today and I am happy with where I am. So, I would not change anything at all. I think it is important to trust yourself, believe in what you are doing, and never stop trying.

My name is Jeremy Sanders. I’m an astrophysicist and I’m originally from the UK, where I grew up in the countryside in England in the border region near Wales. Previously to working at the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics, I worked as a postdoctoral researcher at the Institute of Astronomy, at the University of Cambridge, UK, where I also studied for my PhD. My undergraduate degree was in Natural Sciences at the University of Cambridge, where I specialised in Physics.
I was really interested in a variety of science topics when I was a child, including astronomy, electronics, computer programming and chemistry. What attracted me most to astronomy was the wonder of staring into the sky and being able to see the  amazingly distant but beautiful sights. With my small telescope I could look towards the milky way and see how it resolves into an uncountable numbers of stars. The dark skies where I lived in the countryside were ideal for doing astronomy. My Physics teacher at school was also interested in subject and encouraged me to take old-fashioned film photographs of the moon and other objects through my telescope and develop them myself.

My scientific area of interest is clusters of galaxies. At the moment, I am conducting a study to examine the clusters detected using eROSITA and make measurements of their shape in X-rays. It is often assumed the clusters are simple symmetric objects, but we can learn about their history by their shape, such as the activity of their central black holes, and how they interact with other clusters.
In the eROSITA project I am responsible for making the half-sky maps that are part of the data release. I am very interested in experimenting with different methods for making beautiful astronomical images. For eROSITA, I also work on the software for characterising individual sources. I have in addition been working on measuring the characteristics of the eROSITA mirrors and how sharp their focus is.

In the near future, I’m involved with a project called Einstein Probe which has just been launched. This is a collaboration between the Chinese Academy of Sciences, MPE and the European Space Agency (ESA). Although the main aim of the mission is to find bright flashes in the X-ray sky, it includes X-ray telescopes similar to what eROSITA uses. These will allow us to make detailed images of individual objects that were only observed briefly in the eROSITA survey.
In the further future I am also involved in Athena, which is a very exciting mission being developed by the ESA. This will produce very detailed images of individual objects. For clusters of galaxies, we will be able to make maps of how the gas moves around in the cluster, which will be impossible until it is launched.

My advice to young scientists would be that it’s important to keep a sense of childlike wonder about the subject you are working on. Even though you may have deadlines to meet and more mundane work to do, you need to remember why you became interested in the subject. Talking to people outside your field really helps keep this perspective.

 

My name is Pietro Baldini and I’m a PhD student in the High Energy group at MPE. I grew up in Florence, Italy and later moved to Bologna to study astronomy and astrophysics. I knew I wanted to study physics, as it had always felt intuitive to me, but I specialized in astronomy because it seemed to have more romantic undertones.
In Bologna I met prof. Marcella Brusa, who introduced me to the eROSITA collaboration, and after working on my master’s thesis partly in Bologna and partly at MPE, I applied for a PhD and here I am now!

My favorite astronomical objects are black holes, specifically the super massive ones lying at the center of galaxies. Although they do not emitt any radiation, they can be revealed through the effects they have on their surroundings. For example, if an unluky star wanders too close to a super massive black hole, it will be ripped apart due to the intense gravitational field, and as it gets devoured by the black hole it will emit an intense burst of X-ray radiation. At MPE, I’m using eROSITA to study these violent phenomena known as    „tidal disruption events“, to unveil the otherwise hidden population of super massive black holes.
Regarding DR1, since I only started a few months ago, my main contribution relates to the management of the eROSITA_DE instagram account, through which I hope to share some love for X-ray astronomy in the non-accademic community.

Studying astronomical events relating to scales and distances so far from our day-to-day experience can make us forget about our human nature. I like to keep myself grounded by using my hands to play my bass, craft a new bowl with clay, or give myself a new tattoo with my machine. I’m not good at any of these things, but that’s exactly what helps me take myself a little bit less seriously!

My name is Florian Pacaud and I am a researcher at the Argelander Institute of the University of Bonn since 2007. I am initially from France, near Paris, where I grew up and did my studies until a PhD at CEA Saclay. In contrast with many, who would express their first thrills when looking through a telescope as a youngster, I have not always dreamt of becoming an astrophysicist. But I have always had a strong interest in science broadly speaking. For my bachelor, I chose Physics as way of satisfying my own curiosity about the nature of the world we live in. Later on, I just gradually moved to astrophysics and cosmology for their metaphysical appeal and the wide variety of physical concepts they entail.

My prime interest among the many sub-fields of astrophysics is the study of galaxy clusters. These objects are at the heart of the large scale cosmic web, which connects to the evolution of the Universe as a whole, but also play a key role in shaping the galaxies that, for the most part, reside in them. This link that they establish between cosmology and astrophysics is what makes them fascinating to me.

Since the start of my academic career, I have been working on the systematic investigation of the cluster population using large scale surveys, first in X-rays with the XMM-Newton satellite, and now with Euclid in the optical and of course eROSITA. Within eROSITA, I mostly focus on topics related to understanding the mass of the detected galaxy clusters and investigating those in our immediate surroundings.   

In my spare time, I have a passion for comic books and graphic novels but otherwise simply enjoy family life and hikes.

Working in astrophysics is a great but also rather demanding job. My advice for young people interested in astrophysics: only engage in it if you have a strong motivation and resilience to pressure. However, if you do, never neglect your personal life.
 

My name is Riccardo Seppi, and I am currently a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Geneva in Switzerland.
I was born in a small village in the Italian Alps. I always had some interest in astronomy: as a young kid, I spent time looking at the sky with my grandmother, asking her whether there was anything “after the airplanes“. My mother also told me I would have to go to University to study the subject, and I asked where the University was located in our village of 300 people :) The idea to make it a job arrived much later of course, towards the end of high school. I spent my University years in Italy between Trento and the lovely Bologna. During my master's, I developed an interest in the cosmological evolution of the Universe, and I was lucky to find the perfect PhD at MPE to develop it, where I had an amazing time working with eROSITA.
I am particularly interested in galaxy clusters and their role within the large-scale structure of the Universe, because they can tackle various key scientific questions, such as cosmological properties of dark energy and dark matter, as well as gas physics and its relation to activty from active galactic nuclei. Solid theories, accurate simulations, and high-quality observations are all key to answer such questions, and my interest overlaps between these subjects. In Geneva, I am developing simulations for deep observations of galaxy groups. At MPE, I mainly worked on simulations to understand the population of sources detected by eROSITA, and now I am leading an article about the clustering of galaxy clusters. This is a statistical study of their distribution in space-time and eROSITA is now providing data suitable to explore this topic with new approaches. Our work reveals precious information about the connection between clusters and groups to dark matter haloes and cosmological parameters.

Outside office hours you will likely find me playing sports and exercising. I love the game of basketball because you need to develop your individual skills to improve, but also understand how to work with teammates to play well together. In recent years I also started running more seriously. I like it because successes and failures strictly depend on you, and with training, you can really improve a lot.
I think that life in academia offers serious challenges because of its instability. However, I also view it as an opportunity to get to know different countries, cultures, and friends. To younger students reading these lines, my little advice is to believe in yourself, be confident with your choices, and keep developing your interests. Planning long-term in this world is hard, so as long as you enjoy what you do daily, the stars (or better, galaxy clusters) will align for you :)

My name is Susanne Friedrich and I am an astrophysicist at MPE. When I was young I watched the German science fiction series „Raumpatrouille – Die phantastischen Abenteuer des Raumschiffes Orion“ – my interest in astronomy was awakened. I read all the books on astronomy that I could get my hands on. Later I got a telescope and began exploring the starry sky with its nebulae, star clusters and galaxies.
While I was still at school it was clear to me that I would study physics and astronomy. After completing my studies, I did my PhD in astrophysics at the University of Tübingen. During and after this time I had the opportunity to observe five total solar eclipses, an event you cannot get enough of.

After a long family-related break, I have worked in the eROSITA operations and software development team since 2019. In addition to the ground contacts where we communicate with eROSITA, I am in charge of data calibration and involved in the data processing.
My scientific interest lies in white dwarfs, the final evolutionary state of stars like our sun. My main research topic was to model their spectra to understand the chemical composition of their atmospheres. This in turn allows conclusions to be drawn about their development and age. Finding the oldest white dwarfs in the Milky Way then makes it possible to determine the age of our galaxy. Now I am searching for White Dwarfs in the eROSITA data.
I am also interested in exoplanets and active galaxies.

I love cooking and trying new recipes from all over the world. To that, I grow vegetables, fruits, and especially herbs in my garden.
Since my early days in astronomy, I have been involved at the Nuremberg Public Observatory and try to bring visitors closer to the fascination of the starry sky.
And I still like Science Fiction.
My advice for aspiring scientists: Try to live your dream, even if it is sometimes difficult. You never know what opportunities will arise in the future.

I am Vittorio Ghirardini, astrophysicist. I come from the Northern region of Italy close to Trento, just
in the middle of the Alps. I have always been obsessed with data, collecting it, formatting it, and
visualizing it. When I was little, I sorted the world countries listed at the end of the geographic atlas,
not just by name but also by population, size, population density, etc. I also had my own little
weather data collection system where I measured precipitation, rigorously converting from snow to
water, if necessary, by letting it melt.

When I was a little kid, my family gifted me a small telescope, and I used it for countless hours to
observe the night sky. One thing led to another, and I got my Ph.D. in Bologna in 2019. During this
period, I found new love in galaxy clusters, which has since been my main research interest. In
particular, I find it fascinating how these systems can be seen as their own little Universe and how
they host some of the most energetic events in our Universe. Since the end of my PhD I have been
working as a postdoc with Esra Bulbul, first year at CfA (MA, USA), then since the end of 2019
here at MPE. Here, I immediately started working with this newly amazing X-ray telescope:
eROSITA. First I worked on the calibration data, then moved and dedicated the last few years to
developing the cosmology pipeline used to produce our precision cosmology results.

It is fascinating how galaxy clusters can be used to probe and study the formation and evolution of
the Universe, aka cosmology. As the largest bound halos in the Cosmos, they retain information on
how the primordial density fluctuations evolved into these enourmous structures, and just counting
them allows us to probe quite well our currently accepted cosmological model. My scientific interest
in galaxy clusters extends beyond this, as galaxy cluster observations allow us to study some of
the most energetic phenomena of the Universe, like AGN feedback or cluster mergers.

Beyond science, I have several hobbies, like hiking in the mountains, bike riding, gardening, bread
(and pizza) making with my own sourdough, and cooking in general. As a scientist, I have to daily
code to analyze data, visualize data, create models for the data, and fit the data. As such my main
suggestion would be to learn to code as cleanly as possible so as to minimize the time that is
subsequently spent at debugging.

My name is Gerd Pühlhofer. I hold a PhD in physics, and am currently staff scientist and managing director at the Institute for Astronomy and Astrophysics in Tübingen. I have spent a significant amount of my scientific life contributing to the development of ground-based TeV astronomy, using Cherenkov telescopes. These telescopes provide direct access to particle acceleration, as the gamma-radiation they detect inevitably stems from relativistic particles, unimpeded by radiation from other processes. Nevertheless, the use of X-ray data (as well as data from other wavebands, all across the electromagnetic spectrum) is key to understanding the phenomena and sources we discover and study with the gamma-ray telescopes. eROSITA is a great instrument in that respect.
The study of particle acceleration in astrophysical objects has been my interest since the PhD times, and eROSITA helps to find and study more of such objects!

I’m Dr. Werner Becker, a Professor of Astrophysics at the Ludwig-Maximilians University in Munich, a staff scientist at the Max-Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics in Garching, and a guest scientist at the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy in Bonn. In addition to my scientific work, I have been the managing director of the International Max Planck Research School for Astrophysics at the Ludwig-Maximilians University in Munich since 2020.

Before that career in science, I was educated as a toolmaker and worked as a metal worker in a chemical company for a few years. Afterward, I went to school again for five years to get the qualifications required to be accepted at a university.
I studied Physics at the University of Bonn in the 1980s. After a Diploma in physics, which I did in General Relativity and Cosmology, I started a Ph.D. at MPE in 1990. My Ph.D. research was on “The search for cooling neutron stars using data from the ROSAT all-sky survey,” for which ROSAT data were taken between the summer of 1990 and early 1991. 
Cosmological questions about multi-dimensional space-time drove my original interest in Astrophysics. However, I was relatively soon told by Prof. Gerhard Börner from MPA that the chances of getting a paid position in that field were relatively small. Instead, he suggested I start doing “something more reasonable,” he said, e.g., a Ph.D. at the neighboring institute (i.e., MPE) that would launch a new X-ray observatory soon. He introduced me to Prof. Joachim Trümper, the leader of the ROSAT mission and my scientific mentor for the Ph.D. and most of my scientific career.  Indeed, that was a precious suggestion, as I’m still at MPE today, where I’ve spent more than 33 years doing successful research in high-energy astrophysics.

My scientific field of interest is related to the end states of stellar evolution, e.g., Neutron Stars, Pulsars, Black Holes, and Supernova Remnants. As high-energy astrophysics is multiwavelength astrophysics by default, we observe and study these celestial objects at radio, optical, and X-ray energy bands or wavelength, resp. With eROSITA, I’d be able to experience the possibility of doing research using all-sky survey data for the second time in my scientific life. Having almost the whole sky available for research, with lots of discoveries, is one of the most exciting experiences I can imagine having in scientific life, with lots and lots of new data that bear the potential of many discoveries. For example, when eROSITA had finished the first all-sky survey, we discovered a new Supernova Remnant at high Galactic latitude, which was an unexpected location for it in our Galaxy as most stellar evolution takes place in the Galactic plane. The remnant was dubbed HOINGA. Since then, we have discovered several other new Supernova Remnants and done fascinating research on many known remnants like the Vela, Vela Jr., and Puppis A supernova remnants.
Within the eROSITA Team, I’ve been the chair of the “Interstellar Matter and Diffuse Emission resp. Supernova Remnant” working group, also supervising young Ph.D. students who are doing their Ph.D. research projects in the field of Supernova Remnants and Neutron Stars and providing lots of public talks about the eROSITA mission and new findings.

My real passion is music! And so I loved to play musical instruments all my life. I started with drumming on my mother's pots and pans as a child and later on by learning to play accordion, clarinet, and finally guitar, which I then found was MY instrument. I can almost say, "I’m a musician trapped in the body of an astrophysicist”, as another colleague with whom I share this hobby once expressed it. For about ten years, I’ve led a rock' n' roll band called “ROCKBITS.” Some years ago, our band was asked to play a “60th year landing on the Moon” party where I enjoyed making music AND delivering a talk to the party guests about background knowledge of NASA's Moon landing program —an excellent entanglement of my two hobbies.
Finally, my advice to young scientists: „Be always suspicious of established theories. Never believe that because it is written in textbooks, it can’t be wrong. “
 

My name is Jan Kurpas and I am a PhD candidate at the Leibniz Institut für Astrophysik Potsdam (AIP). I was born in Germany and spent most of my life in and around the Berlin area. I have always been intrigued by the vastness of space, however, the passion for astronomy was fully sparked when I was in my early teens and my father gifted me a small telescope. We soon spent many evenings on fields in Brandenburg observing and capturing the planets and some of the brighter clusters. In my physics undergrad program I consequently was most drawn towards the astronomy courses, which finally convinced me to pursue a masters in astrophysics and has now led me towards my PhD.

My research focuses on isolated neutron stars, particularly those where thermal radiation emerging from the neutron star surface is observable at X-ray energies. More than twenty years ago, eROSITA’s predecessor ROSAT discovered seven purely thermally emitting isolated neutron stars, the „Magnificent Seven (M7)“. They sparked quite some interest among scientists, since the clean view onto the neutron star surface promised a unique chance to study the extreme properties of these objects. However, the systematic study of M7-like neutron stars is made difficult by the fact, that apart from a few proposed candidates, no additional member of this elusive neutron star class could be identified since then. In my work, we use eROSITA to build on the success of the ROSAT era, aiming to search and identify new M7-like neutron stars in the rich eROSITA dataset. This will change the investigation of these objects from the study of a few individual sources towards the study of a population, which by the means of a larger sample size will allow much deeper insights into the evolution and properties of these remarkable objects.

One of my best astronomy related experiences happened in my early twenties, when me and a friend got lost in Berlin. One clear evening we were leaving a train station in an unfamiliar part of the town. After „careful“ study of the map in our smartphones we took a wrong turn, seemingly walking towards our destination - the birthday party of another friend. Due to all the city lights, not many objects were well visible by naked eye, however, Jupiter is definitely one of the few that can't be missed. As such, I pointed out to my friend that Jupiter looked particularly prominent that night and thereby realized that we were facing south - the complete opposite direction of where we meant to go! In this moment, I recognized that although astronomy deals with problems at distances so far away that they are seemingly detached from our daily lives, it can also assist two boys in finding their way around a city - even in times where smartphones, GPS and an internet connection should have made it obsolete to rely on the stars for navigation.

My name is Xiaoyuan Zhang. I am a postdoc researcher at MPE working on galaxy clusters and large scale structures. Before moving to MPE, I did my PhD at SRON Netherlands Institute for Space Research and Leiden University from 2018 to 2022. Being an astronomer was my dream in kindergarten, purely because of my curiosity about the starry night. I am glad that my dream comes true and enjoy being an astronomer.

I am interested in the hot plasma in dark matter halos and the intergalactic space. eROSITA is a perfect telescope to capture X-ray photons from those hot gases. I am a member of the Cluster and Cosmology working group and contributed to several projects including galaxy cluster catalog.

In my spare time, I try out many different food recipes. Of course, the food I made don’t always meet my expectations. But it is enjoyable to improve these recipes just like the lab work.
 

My name is Dr. Mirko Krumpe. I am a senior postdoc at the Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics in Potsdam (AIP).  My initial research as a postdoc was conducted at the University of California, San Diego. Hereafter, I was a fellow at the European Southern Observatory (ESO) in Garching and a postdoc at the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics. Since 2015, I am working at the Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics Potsdam (AIP). Participating in the eROSITA mission allowed me to consistently acquire research grants from DFG and DLR to establish my own research team at the AIP.

I am interested in how the X-ray Universe changes with time. In particular, I am fascinated by the way supermassive black holes in the center of Galaxies change over time. These objects can accrete surrounding matter and thereby power strong emission over the entire wavelength range. During bright, accreting phases these sources are called Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN). The emission of AGN varies strongly, on all timescales and at all wavelengths. Using eROSITA, I search for supermassive black holes that significantly change their energy output over time. These changes could be the beginning or the shutting down of matter streaming onto the supermassive black hole. This is the first time we can use X-ray monitoring data to systematically search for these rare and poorly understood events. Coupled with extensive additional observations using optical, X-ray, and UV telescopes, my collaborators and I have created a database of thousands of new extremely variable AGN.

Beside my astrophysical research, I am actively engaged in the public outreach activities and in educating the next generation of scientists. I am frequently giving tours over our campus at the AIP or leading a public observation at one of our impressive historical telescopes.

My name is Thomas Boller, I’m a researcher at the high energy astrophysics group at the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics and a professor for astrophysics at the Goethe University in Frankfurt. I am also a member of the International Max-Planck Research School (IMPRS) on Astrophysics, where I select and mentor outstanding students and give lectures. I have been awarded with the “Michael and Biserka Baum Preis” for outstanding research on Active Galactic Nuclei at MPE and excellent teaching at the Goethe University Frankfurt. I am a full member of the Academia Europaea, Section Physics and Engineering since 2011.

I’m especially interested in AGN Physics, matter under strong gravity and Narrow-Line Seyfert 1 research. In 2016 me and my colleagues have published an advanced version of the ROSAT catalogue of point sources (2RXS) in preparation of the eROSITA mission and I have published highly cited papers based on ROSAT and XMM-Newton observations. Regarding eROSITA, my focus lies on X-ray variability and I am now actively working on the scientific exploration of the eROSITA mission.

I am sure; the eROSITA project will keep me busy for a few years. Additionally, I keep on giving lectures to students as a Professor for Astrophysics at the Goethe-University Frankfurt and at the International Max-Planck Research School at MPE.
In 1988, I was invited to visit the MPE by Prof. Joachim Trümper, but with the Berlin Wall still existing, the Eastern Government did not allow me to travel. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, I started working at the MPE in 1990. In my spare time, I like to play the piano and act as radio ham.