astronomy
when we were kids and here is
my sister to corroborate it
when my mother is out of patience
punishes us by facing the wall
and I often chose a corner of
the one in the television room where
there was a larousse dictionary in this
larousse dictionary there was a minister
illustration of the planets of the system
solar its distances to the sun
It calls me a lot of attention in the part
superior in a dark and mysterious area
that were located neptune and pluton to
billions of kilometers from the sun
will be distances that I could not
assimilate at that time distances much
older for example even that the
distance from earth to sun
my mother was eventually feeding
my curiosity with books in these books
I discovered that these distances are
tiny compared to the ones
between stars between galaxies in these
books I discovered that there are galaxies with
hundreds of billions of
stars located to billions
of light years from us
the universe is dominated by scales
that truly challenge our
intellect does not cease to amaze me to the
date that is possible to describe in the
nature through mathematical models
we are physical laws we represent them
in a mathematical way and this allows us
develop ideas
these ideas allow us to go
building new knowledge about
prior knowledge of knowledge that
it has already accumulated throughout
decades and centuries and for this they are the
I want to illustrate by telling you about
jocay gamma ray observatory
abstained tachenko in which he has been
collaborating for the last ten years
with about a hundred colleagues
mexico united states we have come together
coomepal pico de orizaba a detector
60 million liters of water whose
purpose is to investigate the cosmos in
particular the nature of the rays
cosmic
the story begins in 1912 when
Victor Hess discovers that the earth is
constantly bombarded by a flow
of particles from space
that we now know with the rays
cosmic what he did was boss was
rise in hot air balloons up
reach heights beyond 5000
meters what he was observing is that
there was a type of radiation radiation
ionizing, not the one that altered
all nature the matter and that this
radiation and it is increasing as
he was going up in the atmosphere
he reduced it correctly and there is a
flow of particles from the
space and that the atmosphere goes
progressively attenuating in
following decades it was found out that
These particles are mainly
nuclei atomic nuclei of
medium hydrogen that travel to
speeds incredibly close to
the speed of light accelerated up
enormous energies somewhere on the
universe
there are objects that work like
very powerful accelerators
particles much more powerful than
accelerators that we have built for
understand the nature of matter
the fundamental nature of the matter
however, we can not see where
come these particles are particles
charged and what happens when a
particle charged travel in a field
magnetic, as is the case with our
galaxy that has a magnetic field is
who do not travel in a straight line for
that we can not see exactly where
originate or not arrival direction
it has nothing to do with the address
where is the source that produced it in
the fifties
several scientists began to
speculate where they could originate
these are these particles enrico fermi in
1949 proposed that the gigantic clouds
mass
places where the stars are formed
could be the accelerators of these
particles the cosmic accelerators
few years later vitaly ginzburg a
a Soviet astrophysicist proposed that
the supernova explosions where a
high mass star dies so
cataclysmic injecting by the part
outside of the star would be
more efficient accelerators
every time we can use the
atmosphere and this is something that went away
discovering in the following years
we can use the atmosphere for the
study of cosmic particles and
for this only what happens is that
when a particle reaches the part
high atmosphere triggers a
shower of particles of minor
energy if the cosmic ray is
absorbed but the atmosphere reacts
producing a lot of particles that
we call secondary particles and that
They can be detected from different
heights
incidentally what víctor g is
observed in in in their robberies in their
balloon measurements was
just secondary particles in the
atmosphere
these particles are not not served
originally before the returns
the accelerators to understand the
nature of the particles
elementary for example there is
they discovered the mormons that are
particles that live only two
millionths of a second but thanks to
that is propagated very close the speed of
the light down and the relativity
special ice time that extends your life
when moving in a way that we call
relativistic these particles arrive and
they are everywhere
in fact what I’ve been talking about
have crossed this room or that others
have seen them around 100
millions of deaths
now we are some tracer some of
some kind of radiation that moves
in a straight line to know where it
the rays produce the rays
gamma do just this the rays
gamma are the most extreme type of
electromagnetic radiation and it ‘s base
people like light only that the
we could qualify as light with
steroids that can only be produced
by very high-energy particles
if we see the sources the east of
gamma rays here we have some this one
we can see what these are
cosmic accelerators and check if
fer mickey south are right
also in the first room
b the 20th century
this pavel chekov found that the the
high-energy radiation produces a
type of light blue light in the water that
we call chekhov today
light denotes the passage in a very lively way
the passage of high energy particles
in the water in the fifties
British physicists managed to build
water detectors with light sensors
we call had photomultipliers
some of these sensors that record
very fast
these light signals for the study of
cosmic particles and in 1960
they installed the first water detector
for the study of cosmic rays in
goat park in england
these arrangements consist of dozens oo
there can be hundreds of detectors
Individuals of water dispersed in a
relatively large area
we can not very easily know if the
shower of particles that strike
our detector array is due to lightning
a cosmic ray a gamma ray but yes
it is possible
already in the eighties and nineties what
what was clear is that the best
opportunity to distinguish gamma rays
of the cosmic rays was going to
very at the highest possible
this made that in 1998 a
collaboration of institutions of
united states will install in new
Mexico at a height of 2 thousand 600 meters
the miracle gamma ray observatory
that was able to show that it was
possible to separate the cosmic rays and
make maps of the sky observed in rays
gamma
this collaboration approached
inscriptions
you want and he proposed us the creation of a
larger observatory and a larger
height to the site botchan the
gamma ray observatory that we have
today in the national park peak
from orizaba
It must be said that Mexico is a place
privileged for astronomy in
as to its geography the sites both
in baja california like the
availability of sites above
4.000 meters where the water does not freeze
this is only possible in Mexico in
china india and the north of the andes and
so we started working on this
observatory
the job observatory in which we started
to work from 2006 and we started to
install in 2010 2011 consists of 300
Large water tanks are
seven meters in diameter each tank
five meters high can see it
the scale compared to the human scale
each one has 180 thousand liters of water
water is treated to be completely
transparent and can be light
absorb the cherenkov light that there and it
maintain dark room conditions
like the dark rooms that in the
youth
this day one each of these tanks
is instrumented with 4 obtained
photomultipliers so that
We have 1,200 channels of data this
observatory works continuously all
the day of day and night
practically without interruption
I was capturing 20 thousand cosmic rays
second
continuously generating more than 2
daily terabytes of data
we do not have a very good interest in the
site then we are accumulating dozens
of terabytes of data there and in
finally we transport them to
institute of nuclear sciences in
university city where the data are
subsequently transmitted over the internet
to the University of Maryland in states
united also creating a backing
a gómez a respective support of all
this database of all the
collaborators not if this one from us
our is the comfort of our
Offices
we connect these computers
we analyze the data we use methods
visualization mathematics for
first define if in a position nothing
there is a gamma ray source and for
characterize the night and some colleagues
they use particularly attractive methods
and so we have made a map of two
third parts of heaven seen with
radiation with this type of radiation
of very high energy extreme reaction
that reveals where the
cosmic accelerators and you see a band
which is the plane of our galaxy in
our galaxy we have observed
effectively remnants of supernova
as predicted at the time x-bow and
fermí are also the complex
star formation from there of these
molecular clouds but we have seen
they are also more complex stars of
neutrons through winds
interacting with the environment and
high mass stars that have
powerful winds that also produce
cosmics rays
nature has more ways to
generate this type of particles of the
that we had been imagining and this is
what we have been this unveiling with the
years as scientists we are dedicated to
collect data and study them by
curiosity about the desire to understand
better nature is curiosity the
that guides us to the company apparently
futile to understand the cosmos and here
quoting a 1939 letter but still
current American educator
abraham flexner is curious that in a
world flooded with irrational hatreds that
they shake society and threaten even
to civilization itself there are men and
women dedicated to developing
culture to understand the nature and
extend the same flexner knowledge
quote that Maxwell simply by
curiosity develop the laws of the
electrodynamics and sherry used them
to describe the radio inns as
electromagnetic waves this sat the
bases for telecommunications to
beginning
the 20th century the same curiosity the same
advertising that a child feels when he sees
for the first time a young man and crossed a
adult to see an eclipse for the first time
or the same curiosity that I felt at
see this dictionary illustration
larousse is the one that I for example to max
planck to develop the principle
fundamental of quantum mechanics
which is the basis of the technology of the
technological revolution of the centuries
20 and 21 and then there are many roads
that take us from knowledge
fundamental that it may seem first your
profile or the development of new
technologies to cure diseases and
to better understand global threats
that occur in our world
knowledge is invaluable
it’s a virtually unlimited value is
a value as real and tangible as the
universe itself
Thank you
”
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