Mexicans find galactic sources of the highest-energy gamma rays ever

Researchers of the Physics and Astronomy Institutes of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) , as well as experts from the National Institute of Astrophysics, Optics, and Electronics (INAOE) , revealed a catalog of nine regions of the universe that emit high energy gamma rays , which turns them in the biggest energetic sources observed in our galaxy.

The discovery was registered in the High-Altitude Water Cherenkov gamma rays observatory that has an area of 20 thousand square meters, located in the Sierra Negra volcano in Puebla and that is in charge of collaborating in the study of the universe and nature .

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The rays are 10 times bigger than the maximum energy reached on Earth with the particle accelerator of the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland, according to the UNAM.

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Andrés Sandoval

, researcher of the Physics Institute (IF) and spokesman of the HAWC collaboration expressed his surprise of the ultraenergetic gamma rays coinciding with pulsars (magnetized neutron stars created when a normal star expires in a supernova explosion), most of them at 6,000 light-years from us, since as he explains “ gamma ray s are not produced near the pulsar but in extended regions that reach between 10 and 70 light-years.”

The recent discoveries are strong evidence of the capacity of the HAWC observatory that detects “the highest energies,” as asserted by Magdalena González , researcher of the Astronomy Institute (IA) and who also collaborates in this project. “We will keep observing the skies day and night for the next years to discover new phenomena in our Universe,” as she said in a statement released by the UNAM .

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The discovery will make it possible for the HAWC to work with other observatories in the world so as to study “sources with photons of other energies: in radium , X rays , and lower energy gamma rays, and with other particles like neutrinos , that are being detected by the IceCube laboratory in Antarctica,” said Alberto Carramiñana , INAOE researcher and scientific researcher of the observatory.

The relevance of future collaborations lays in the obtention of answers regarding the mystery of whether the origin of gamma rays is due to the interaction of protons or electrons and thus ending doubts surrounding the discovery.

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