Alejandra Fresco, a Paraguayan cosmologist studying galaxies
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Loading... - Randy Watson
- 19 Sep 2022
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Alejandra Yrupe Fresco says that the heart of her studies encompasses the groups of galaxies and the gas that connects them in the intergalactic medium: "We know that they are connected to each other, that they can be very different from each other in shape, size, in themselves. they are or are not forming stars, in that they all have a super massive black hole in the center that may or may not be active”, he summarizes about what is known about the incommensurable.
Gases, the central element of galaxies, "show us the effects of gravity and other mechanisms such as the activity of supermassive holes or the result of the collision of galaxies or the influence of dark matter, among many other things", bill.
“Understanding that cold gas feeds galaxies to continue forming stars”, a study of theirs found a fundamental fact: “The cold gases in clusters (groups of hundreds to thousands of very massive galaxies) had not yet been verified in observations. They are normally known to emit very hot gas in X-rays, but we found this gas to be cold in my study and then compared it with other studies of lower mass galaxy clusters and also with simulations to verify its presence. Our studies of how the universe works rely primarily on the movement of gas and its content (what chemical elements it is made of) to infer how the universe works.”
–How did you decide to study astrophysics and cosmology, such a difficult subject?
-Since I was a little girl I used to watch the stars with my brother in our patio at Villa Elisa. I think back then there was not so much light pollution and looking at the sky from anywhere outside the city is a beautiful experience. If you look long enough, even without any instrument, you start to notice differences between the stars. The different colors, sizes, brightness, some flicker, some don't. And, of course, if you're lucky enough to catch a glimpse of a shooting star. When I was already fascinated with the sky, my dad told me that my grandfather Petoto (Dr. Manuel Fresco Sr., radiologist) also loved astronomy. And that he had a teacher and a very good friend named Blas Servin, with whom he shared this hobby. So he puts me in contact with the professor, who so tenderly said: "Did the astronomy bug bite you too?"
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