Understanding the origins of life

11/14/2025
Reading time 1 min.

In the "EXplained" series, we provide insights into the seven Clusters of Excellence at our university. The final episode focuses on ORIGINS, represented at TUM by Prof. Stefan Schönert from the Chair of Experimental Astroparticle Physics.

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How did the universe come into being? How did stars, planets, and ultimately life, develop? The ORIGINS Cluster of Excellence addresses these fundamental questions by researching processes ranging from the formation of matter after the Big Bang to the formation of prebiotic molecules from a multidisciplinary perspective.

During the second funding phase, the focus will be on making new discoveries about dark matter, the conditions necessary for extraterrestrial life, and improving our understanding of complex astrophysical structures. ORIGINS aims to advance not only basic research, but also science education. To this end, collaborations with museums and schools, as well as public exhibitions, are planned.

We want to find out how life-friendly conditions arise on planets.

Prof. Stefan Schönert

ORIGINS has been funded as part of the Excellence Strategy since 2019. Joint applicants are the Technical University of Munich (TUM) and the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München. The Max Planck Institutes for Astrophysics, for Biochemistry, for Extraterrestrial Physics, for Physics and for Plasma Physics, as well as the European Southern Observatory, the Leibniz Supercomputing Center and the Deutsches Museum are also involved.

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