Florian Goebel

Who was Florian Goebel?

Florian Goebel was a German astrophysicist attached to the Max Planck Institute for Physics in Munich. He had also been a member of DESY, a German-based research center that develops and runs several particle accelerators and detectors, most notably the ZEUS project.

At the time of his death he was managing the MAGIC II telescope project, the companion to the MAGIC telescope situated 85 metres from its counterpart at the Roque de los Muchachos Observatory on La Palma, one of the Canary Islands. Goebel died after falling from a height of about ten metres as he was working on the camera of the telescope. He was aged 35. His death led to the suspension of the official inauguration date for MAGIC II, originally set for 19 September 2008.