The Berlin newspaper Tagesspiegel has honored 100 outstanding researchers from Berlin who are making a particularly significant impact this year. Through groundbreaking research, excellent teaching, and dedicated engagement, they are shaping the science of tomorrow. The series “The 100 Most Important Figures in Berlin Science 2025” introduces these scientists – including three researchers from the Planetary Sciences and Remote Sensing Group at Freie Universität Berlin. A brief overview:

Prof. Dr. Heike Rauer and Dr. Maximilian Hamm, in collaboration with Dr. Grott and Dr. Knollenberg from the DLR Institute of Space Research, as well as Dr. Ziese from FUB, developed the LRAD instrument and sent it to the Moon aboard a private spaceflight mission – IM-2, operated by the U.S. company Intuitive Machines. LRAD was designed to measure temperatures in permanently shadowed lunar craters in search of ice. However, the IM-2 lander did not touch down as planned, so no data could be collected. Lunar missions remain among the most challenging endeavors in space exploration. Nevertheless, the development and construction of the LRAD instrument provided valuable insights for the design of similar instruments on future lunar missions.

Dr. Nozair Khawaja focuses primarily on the study of icy moons – particularly in relation to astrobiological questions. Ocean worlds in the outer solar system are considered potentially habitable environments, where simple forms of life might exist under certain conditions. He leads the ERC project AIMS (Analogue Icy Moon Simulations), which is dedicated to simulating the environmental conditions on icy moons. The aim of the project is to better understand these extreme environments and thus gain new insights into the processes that might occur on distant ocean worlds

 

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Contact:

Dr. Maximilian Hamm, Freie Universität Berlin, Department of Earth Sciences, Institute of Geological Sciences, Planetary Sciences and Remote Sensing Group, Email: maximilian.hamm@fu-berlin.de

Dr. Nozair Khawaja, Freie Universität Berlin, Department of Earth Sciences, Institute of Geological Sciences, Planetary Sciences and Remote Sensing Group, Email: nozair.khawaja@]fu-berlin.de

Prof. Dr. Heike Rauer, Freie Universität Berlin, Department of Earth Sciences, Institute of Geological Sciences, Planetary Sciences and Remote Sensing Group and DLR, Email: heike.rauer@fu-berlin.de