Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron DESY
A Research Centre of the Helmholtz Association

Jentschke Lectures

Every year, DESY organizes a lecture in memory of Professor Dr. Willibald Jentschke (held in English)

DESY Lecture Series in Memory of Professor Dr. Willibald Jentschke. Professor Willibald Jentschke was the founder and first director of DESY in Hamburg and remained in this position until 1970. He laid the foundation for a laboratory playing an outstanding role in research based on accelerators. His knowledge, competence, vision and personality shaped DESY until today. Willibald Jentschke passed away on 11 March 2002, a few months after his 90th birthday. Starting in 2002 DESY will organise annual lectures in memory of Willibald Jentschke.


Lecture 2025
NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission to asteroid Bennu: A voyage to our origins
(Lecture in English)

Wednesday, November 5, 2025
4:30 p.m.
DESY Auditorium

Prof. Sara Russell
Professor of planetary sciences and leader of the Planetary Materials Group at the Natural History Museum, London
Professor Sara Russell Zoom (173 KB)

Professor Sara Russell (Image: Sara Russell)

Prof. Russell and her team are studying the formation of the solar system as well as the formation and evolution of the moons of the terrestrial planets. They’re currently using the meteorite collection the Museum cares for to investigate the origin of water in the solar system and geological processes in asteroids.

Sara Russell is a Science Team Member of NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission and will give us fascinating insights into astrobiology in her lecture.

NASA’s OSIRIS-REx space mission launched in 2016 bound for asteroid Bennu. After imaging and studying the asteroid, it returned to Earth in 2023 with 122g of material collected from the rocky surface, making it the biggest NASA sample return mission since Apollo.

The returned material has been studied at laboratories around the world, including at DESY. It is rich in water, carbon (including complex organic molecules) and salts. The rocks that make up Bennu are 4.5 billion years old, and is a witness to the origins and early history of our Solar System. The early Earth would have been impacted by similar asteroids and these likely brought the water, carbon and other essential elements that enabled life to begin and flourish.


The Jentschke Lecture marks the highlight of the DESY Science Day. On this festive event DESY welcomes newly appointed Lead Scientists, celebrates recent scientific highlights, and awards the PhD thesis prize of the Association of the Friends and Sponsors of DESY (VFFD).

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