At the 29th state competition of the event ‚Jugend forscht‘ 2019 in Jena, Thuringia, the student Maximilian Wegner won a research internship at GFZ with his project "The Battle for Every Byte - Developing an Image Compression Algorithm", as a special award. Since 15 July he now spends two weeks in the departments Geodesy and Geophysics.

Within his project, Wegner developed an algorithm for the compression of images and took 2nd place in the category mathematics and computer science. He also received two special prizes, the internship at GFZ and a participation at a Fraunhofer Talent School.

He was free to choose the research areas for his two-week internship at GFZ based on his personal interests. Until 26 July, the section Magnetospheric Physics will provide him with an insight into the influence of the sun on space weather. The term "space weather" refers to changes in the near-Earth region of the magnetosphere surrounding the Earth. The Earth owes its protection from solar winds and cosmic rays to the magnetosphere, which is also the origin of the phenomenon of the northern lights.

In the section Global Geomonitoring and Gravity Field, he joins the Terrestrial and Airborne Gravimetry working group to learn how they add to the understanding of Earth’s gravity field. Based on the gravity field it is e.g. possible to get an insight in changes in the distribution of water masses. On his last day, a practical exercise for measuring the gravitational field with a gravimeter is planned. (ak)