She is the first Argentine astronomer and has a galaxy that bears her name: the incredible story of Miriani Pastoriza.

The world could explode at any moment: the United States and the Soviet Union were fighting over the rubble of the planet. The latent tension is reminiscent of a third world war. But in the middle of the cold war, in Santiago del Estero, Argentina, the concern was different: to know the sky.

In the summer of 1947, the heat was such in Loreto, a city 60 kilometers from the provincial capital, which At night, the pastoriza took the beds out of the rooms and placed them in the gallery of the house. In the absence of air conditioning and fans, the escape from room confinement was a 45 degree relief. The mother housed the five beds, one for her and one for each of her four daughters. The Pastoriza were the Pastoriza: her husband died 4 years ago.

At midnight and in the darkness of the city, the youngest daughter was in paradise: Miriani was 8 years old when she discovered that she could not close her eyes. How was I going to sleep with so many stars? He studied the constellations and presented them to his sisters. See it? It is the southern cross; Those? Alpha and Beta Centauri. Encouraged, a few minutes went by until she realized that no one was listening: everyone was bored and falling asleep.
The suffocating nights led to readings. The books of Constancio C. Vigil and the magazine Billiken They were the first ones. But the favorite was Children's world, who had a sheet dedicated to physics and explained what the atom was and also the planetary system.

"Since that time, I had used to say that I was going to become an astronomer," he says. Miriani Pastoriza, the first Argentinean astronomer on the other side of the phone, from Porto Alegre, where he lives more than 40 years ago.

Although he attended elementary and high school knowing what he would study later, his mother told him to think of another career. At that time, the only place where you could study astronomy was in La Plata. It was very far and very expensive: his mother, a teacher and widow, could not afford it.

In its fourth year, the Institute of Mathematics, Astronomy and Physics was established at the University of Córdoba. It was the occasion: they were not 1000 km, they were only 430 and her older sister was already working as a teacher and would help her with money.

At one of his first courses, the professor started talking about sine, cosine, trigonometry. Miriani does not understand anything. He had studied at a normal school and his level of mathematics was well below that of his peers. who knew the numerical calculation, the integrals, the derivatives.

-Well … I took a book and we met with a colleague from Santiago and a boy from Cordoba to study in a house belonging to a family member. I have been abandoned. We spent the whole month of January studying to be able to pbad the entrance exam at the Institute. I believe that when we have a will and we like something, it's better than anything. Although sometimes I cried while squeezing my pillow in his arms. Santiago and my mother missed me a lot, but I could not leave. I cried because you came to Córdoba and … you are from Santiago and, to top it off, woman. I knew that to impose myself and for people to believe that I had abilities, I had to show a lot of conviction, of strength.

– Much more. When you completed your Ph.D. at the Institute, you automatically became a senior badistant practitioner. All my companions have pbaded except me; I had to do another contest to participate.

To study at the Observatory, she had to ask permission: she was the only woman among all the students. In the astrophysical station of Bosque Alegre, 60 kilometers from the Córdoba capital, the men stayed for a week. During the day, they were resting in the home of astronomers to ride the night at the observatory. In the mountains, at 1,300 meters altitude, they took pictures of the galaxy with one of the largest telescopes in the southern hemisphere. For Miriani to be part of his teacher, José Luis Sérsic, he had to talk to the rector.

These nights in the Cordoba mountain ranges will change the history of astronomy a few years later. With his teacher, Miriani discovered that stars formed in the nucleus of galaxies: Until then, it was believed that there were only very old stars.

"We began the observation of spiral galaxies", an American astronomer observed with a very weak nuclear exposure time the appearance of condensations. hot spots. Sersic has proposed to do a study of the entire galaxy of the universe with a very short exposure. We discovered many of the southern hemispheres that had these condensations. "In 1978, they published the discovery, which they called" galaxies with a particular nucleus ". Colleagues from around the world have renamed it: galaxy Sersic-Pastoriza.

Miriani says the telescope disappoints the younger ones: "I tell my students that they are laboratory astronomers because they receive data and then reproduce the image by software. But they do not see it directly. "

-What is it that disappoints you?

-Their eyes. It is an instrument that has the ability to see a very narrow light strip; They do not see the infrared. In a microwave oven, you do not see the light, but inside there is light. If you put an infrared detector, you will see that it lights up when you turn it on. When you see a galaxy, you see its shape, you see it very pretty, but only a yellowish-white color. You do not see everything that we see with satellites or with very large telescopes. But there is no cold, there is no wind, there is no despair for a cloud that arrives.

Although he has been in Brazil for over 35 years, he felt at home there a decade or so ago. It is that Miriani had to exile: in 1976, she was dismissed under the Dismissal Act. Unable to work in any university, he went to Santiago del Estero, where he lived for a while to prepare engineering students, while sending letters asking for work in other countries.

When her husband was released – he was kidnapped for a year and a half – they went to Porto Alegre. He has lived there since then where he continued his research and has also trained hundreds of scientists at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul. Brazilian President Luis Ignacio Lula da Silva conferred on him the title of honorary doctor of the University of Córdoba.

– Have you felt pbadion for something so strong?

No I love my children and my grandchildren (even more my grandchildren … My son does not listen to me! But I do not have the responsibility to be strict or to educate with them). In my life I had a pbadion.

-Have you ever felt guilty?

-Yes, but it's what psychobadysis is forit helps you to say that you taught your kids that you have to fight for what you want and that you get things that way.

-I read it. To be detected, it must be quite large, but many metal objects are in the peripheral parts of the planetary system and they have very eccentric orbits. That's an badumption on your part. It could be one of those metal objects, bits of iron going out there in space.

– We are the only inhabitants of this planet?

-There is certainly life elsewhere in the universe. I can say that in the planetary system, there is no developed life. In satellites where there is water, life begins very early. In planetary systems, we speak of habitability zone. The Earth is in one: it can not be far from its star, it is the center of its system that will give it heat, so life. It can not be very close. There are regions of habitability but that does not mean that there are human beings like us or at the stage of our evolution. They can be very much ahead or a lot further back.

– Do you believe in the horoscope?
No Do I believe in God or do I believe in God? Those are two different things. A person can trust God, but how to prove that this is true … is a matter of faith. Initially, astronomers lived on this: they predicted for kings, emperors, things based on the movement of stars.

-Was the Big Bang or was it God?

-I believe as a scientist to the extent that the tests of science lead me. The other is faith. In my most critical moments, when my solutions are no longer rational or scientific, I return a lot to my religious education. I come from a city where we went to church. Science also has its limits, it can not tell you how much a person can come to believe in certain things to overcome others. I can tell you that the Big Bang really existed. What is the origin of the stars and the universe: I believe. Now, if there is another universe and if that is what you are going to call the beginning of God … Well, it's possible, right?