Human consciousness, and with it knowledge, is perhaps the greatest privilege a living being can experience across the infinite distances and time of the Universe. Thus, to understand our surroundings on a universal scale is the greatest privilege of my life: a mind open beyond social and human superficialities.
Ph.D. in Astronomy · High-energy astrophysicist
CONICET researcher · Professor at the Universidad Nacional de Río Negro
Viedma (8500), Argentina
I study young massive star clusters and star-forming regions with X-ray telescopes, chiefly Chandra and XMM-Newton. My work centres on the hot plasma, massive stars and low-mass populations of Cygnus OB2 and Westerlund 1, and on statistical methods for low-count X-ray spectra. I am based at the Universidad Nacional de Río Negro, Sede Atlántica, in Viedma, Patagonia.
Member of the Extended Westerlund One and Two Chandra (and JWST) Survey, led from INAF – Palermo. The survey studies the X-ray population, Wolf–Rayet stars and diffuse emission of the most massive young cluster in the Milky Way.
Mapping the hot gas that fills the Cygnus OB2 association and separating it from unresolved stars, using the Chandra Cygnus OB2 Legacy Survey.
Statistical characterisation of how reliable X-ray spectral parameters are when sources yield only tens of photons, calibrated on simulated Chandra ACIS-I spectra.
External researcher in Overcoming Challenges in the Evolution and Nature of Massive Stars, a Horizon Europe project funded by the European Union.
Coordinator of the star formation working group in the community of ESA's Advanced Telescope for High Energy Astrophysics.
International ground- and satellite-based monitoring of the X-ray emitting massive stars of the Carina Nebula (X-MEGA). Optical spectroscopy of its targets revealed new massive O-type binaries and their orbits, and long-term monitoring followed the periodic events of η Carinae.
Seven of my papers, each told through one of its figures. X-ray telescopes see the Universe at its hottest: gas at millions of degrees, stellar flares and the shock waves of exploded stars. The colours in these images are not what the eye would see; they encode the energy of the X-ray photons.
2026 · Astronomy & Astrophysics · First author
EWOCS-VII: Unveiling the faint diffuse X-ray emission in Westerlund 1
Westerlund 1 is the closest super star cluster to the Sun, home to more than 100,000 stars. Its most massive stars blow winds so powerful that, when they collide, they heat the gas between the stars to tens of millions of degrees. After carefully removing almost five thousand individual stars from the deep Chandra images of the EWOCS survey, we could map this faint glow for the first time. In the core it comes from colliding winds of Wolf–Rayet stars; further out, the hot gas touches cold clouds and exchanges electrons with them.
2023 · ApJ Supplement · First author
Diffuse X-ray emission in the Cygnus OB2 association
Cygnus OB2 is one of the largest groups of massive stars in our Galaxy. Using 40 Chandra pointings that cover an area five times the full Moon, we removed nearly eight thousand stars to reveal the gas between them. That gas fills the whole region, heated by stellar winds that crash into each other and into the surrounding clouds. We also found the first signs of X-ray halos around some evolved massive stars.
2023 · ApJ Supplement · First author
The statistical uncertainties on X-ray flux and spectral parameters from Chandra ACIS-I observations of faint sources
Most young stars in a distant cluster send us only a few dozen X-ray photons during an observation. How well can we measure their temperature or brightness from so little light? We simulated 150,000 artificial spectra to find out, and built maps that give the error bars directly. They let astronomers know how far they can trust a measurement before they even fit the data.
2012 · Astrophysics and Space Science · Co-author
A multiwavelength study of the supernova remnant G296.8-0.3
When a massive star explodes, its shock wave heats the surrounding gas for thousands of years. Combining X-ray, radio and infrared images, we showed that this remnant lies at least 29,000 light-years away and contains gas at about 10 million degrees. Near its centre we found a point-like X-ray source that may be the neutron star left behind by the explosion.
2008 · Astronomy & Astrophysics · First author
An X-ray survey of low-mass stars in Trumpler 16 with Chandra
Young stars like the early Sun are much brighter in X-rays than they are today, so X-ray images find them even inside dusty nebulae. In Trumpler 16, a 3-million-year-old cluster next to the giant star η Carinae, we detected over a thousand X-ray sources. Many of their planet-forming disks have survived the harsh light of their massive neighbours.
2007 · Astronomy & Astrophysics · First author
X-ray flaring from the young stars in Cygnus OB2
Young stars are magnetically violent: their flares are far more powerful than those of today's Sun. We catalogued the flares of about a thousand young stars in Cygnus OB2 and compared them with stars in the Orion Nebula. Stars of 1 and 2 million years flare in the same way, which tells us this activity changes slowly in a star's youth.
2003 · Monthly Notices of the RAS · First author
XMM-Newton X-ray observations of the Carina nebula
The Carina Nebula hosts some of the most massive stars known, including η Carinae. Using the European XMM-Newton satellite, we catalogued its X-ray sources and measured how the X-ray brightness of massive stars follows their total light. Some stars turned out to be surprisingly bright at high energies, a sign of colliding winds in binary systems.
Science fiction · for all ages
What would happen if a star exploded as a supernova close to the Earth? Long before its light arrived, a burst of neutrinos would announce it. My novel follows that warning and imagines what it would mean for us. It draws on the science of massive stars, whose final moments matter most for life in the Universe.
Editorial Autores de Argentina · ISBN 978-987-87-2864-3
Doctoral thesis on the optical and X-ray properties of O stars in Carina, with the first XMM-Newton study of the nebula and the discovery of an infrared star cluster in the region. Papers on binaries from the MEGA-X campaign are listed under Research.
Marie Curie Transfer of Knowledge fellow at INAF – Osservatorio Astronomico di Palermo, studying the influence of stellar high-energy radiation on planetary atmospheres.
First Chandra census of the Cygnus OB2 stellar population and its X-ray flares, an X-ray survey of low-mass stars in Trumpler 16, and studies of σ Orionis, η Chamaeleontis and NGC 2023.
A long collaboration on the X-ray morphology and spectra of Galactic remnants such as Kes 41, Kes 17, G344.7-0.1 and G359.1-0.5, including thermal emission and stellar ejecta.
Detection of non-thermal X-rays from the bow shock of the runaway star AE Aurigae and from the protostellar jet HH 80, and models of jets colliding with dense clouds.
Collaborations beyond star formation: colliding-wind binaries in radio, microquasar searches, a recoiling black hole in M83, γ-ray emission from star-forming galaxies, flaring T Tauri stars and a blazar candidate.
Principal investigator in the Astrophysics group at Universidad Complutense de Madrid, and participant in the Andalusian Astronomy project with Universidad de Jaén.
University teaching in mathematics and astronomy, alongside research supervision of doctoral students.
Mathematics I (Matemática I)
Head of Practical Sessions (JTP) · Universidad Nacional de Río Negro, Sede Atlántica
Course name
Role · University
Independent Researcher
CONICET · Universidad Nacional de Río Negro, Sede Atlántica, Viedma
Adjunct Researcher
CONICET
Assistant Researcher
CONICET
Marie Curie postdoctoral researcher (European Union)
INAF – Osservatorio Astronomico di Palermo, Italy. Project ISHERPA.
CONICET postdoctoral fellow
FCAG – UNLP
Ph.D. in Astronomy
FCAG, Universidad Nacional de La Plata. Thesis: Optical and X-ray study of O-type stars in the Carina region. Advisor: Dr. Nidia I. Morrell.
Licenciado in Astronomy
FCAG, Universidad Nacional de La Plata
ATHENA / ESA research stay
INAF – Osservatorio Astronomico di Palermo. Diffuse emission analysis in the Cygnus OB2 Chandra large project.
CONICET external fellowship
INAF – Osservatorio Astronomico di Palermo. Statistics of uncertainties in simulated X-ray spectra.
Marie Curie Transfer of Knowledge postdoctoral fellowship (EU)
INAF – Osservatorio Astronomico di Palermo, Italy. Project ISHERPA.
CONICET postdoctoral fellowship
FCAG – UNLP. X-rays from Galactic and extragalactic star-forming regions.
Doctoral fellowship, CIC Buenos Aires
FCAG – UNLP
OCEANS, Horizon Europe
External researcher
EWOCS – Westerlund 1 and 2 Chandra (and JWST) Survey
Member · INAF – Palermo
ATHENA (ESA)
Coordinator, star formation group
Astrophysics group, Universidad Complutense de Madrid
Principal investigator
Andalusian Astronomy project
With Universidad de Jaén, Spain
ISHERPA
European Community – INAF
MEGA-X international campaign
Ground and satellite monitoring of X-ray emitting stars
Massive Stars project
Dir. V. Niemela, FCAG – UNLP
Ph.D. advisor, Agostina Filócomo
CONICET · FCAG – UNLP. Thesis approved 2023.
Ph.D. co-advisor, Paula Kornecki
CONICET · FCAG – UNLP
Ph.D. co-advisor, Alejandra Suárez
CONICET · FCAG – UNLP
Supervisor, Eng. Martín Araya
CONICET support staff, Universidad Nacional del Comahue
Ph.D. thesis examiner (alternate), F. Fogantini
Observatorio Astronómico de La Plata
Ph.D. thesis examiner, D. Sevilla
Facultad de Física, Universidad Nacional de Rosario
Chandra proposal review panel
Chandra X-ray Center, NASA, Boston
Licenciatura thesis examiner, S. del Palacio
Observatorio Astronómico de La Plata
Consultant, CONICET researcher admission committee
CONICET
Student and graduate representative
UNLP Academic Council and faculty hiring committees
Collaboration visit with Dr. J. J. Drake
Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian, Cambridge, USA
Collaboration visit with Dr. J. J. Drake
Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian, Cambridge, USA
Invited reviewer, Chandra proposal evaluation
Chandra X-ray Center, NASA, Boston, USA
Living on the Río Negro, a few kilometres from the Atlantic, shapes much of what I do outside research: the water, the dark Patagonian sky and long journeys south and west.
Co-director of the Asociación Civil y Deportiva Open Water in Viedma, which organises open water competitions on the Río Negro, and one of the coaches of the swimming programme at Club Sol de Mayo.
Photographing Patagonian and Andean landscapes, and the dark skies that make the region a natural observatory.
Journeys to remote and extreme landscapes in the south and along the cordillera, with an eye on the 2027 annular solar eclipse over Patagonia.
Time on the water beyond swimming, on the river and the coast of Río Negro.
Places where I have lived, studied, worked and travelled. Countries I have visited are shaded; select a point or a name in the list to read about it.
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