The Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics (AIP) is a scientific institute based in Potsdam, Germany. It was founded in 1992 and is named after the mathematician and philosopher Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz. The AIP conduct research in astrophysics, solar physics, and cosmology.
The AIP has approximately 350 employees, of which about half are scientists. They are organized into four divisions: Astronomy, Solar Physics, Stellar Astrophysics, and Extraterrestrial Physics. The institute also hosts the German Astrophysical Virtual Observatory (GAVO).
The AIP was founded to consolidate various smaller institutes that had been spread out across different locations in East Germany after the fall of the Berlin Wall. These institutes were then merged into the new institute.
The main goal of the AIP is to understand the physical processes that occur in astronomical objects such as stars, planets, galaxies, and black holes. To achieve this goal, they use a variety of observational methods as well as theoretical modeling.
Some of the most notable achievements of the AIP include discovering evidence for dark matter in galaxy clusters and helping to develop methods for measuring cosmic distances using supernovae.