Special guided tour ‘Inside ASDEX Upgrade’ in the Science Year Energy of the Future
A collaboration project between the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics and the Leibniz Supercomputing Centre of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences.
Normally, only a few experts have access to it: the plasma vessel of the ASDEX Upgrade fusion research facility at the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics (IPP) in Garching near Munich. A special guided tour on the occasion of the German ‘Science Year 2025 – Energy of the Future’ is now taking school classes right into the heart of the facility. A collaboration between the IPP and the Centre for Virtual Reality and Visualisation at the Leibniz Supercomputing Centre of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities (LRZ) makes it possible to experience ASDEX Upgrade from the inside.
The new combined tour of IPP and LRZ on fusion research starts at IPP with an introduction to the basics of energy production by nuclear fusion. Here, students visit the large ASDEX Upgrade experiment hall, the hottest place in Germany. The plasma studied in ASDEX Upgrade is ultra-thin but hotter than the sun. Heated to over a hundred million degrees, it resembles the fuel in a future fusion power plant in important properties. At the neighbouring LRZ on the Garching research campus, the tour then continues in the CAVE (CAVE Automatic Virtual Environment) with five LED walls in the form of an open cube, in which scientific content can be virtually presented. Put on the overshoes and the headset, pick up the controller – and off you go to explore the plasma vessel!
The three-hour special tour ‘Inside ASDEX Upgrade’ is aimed at school classes from year 10 upwards. The following dates are currently available:
- Monday, 24 February, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. (including lunch break)
- Monday, 31 March, 1 to 4 p.m.
- Monday, 12 May, 9 to 12 a.m.
- Monday, 19 May, 9 to 12 a.m.
- Wednesday, 25 June, 9:30 to 12:30 a.m.
Register at besucher.garching@ipp.mpg.de. The guided tour is free of charge.
Julia Sieber