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ⓜ Believing in things…

Sacred Space Astronomy avatarPosted on February 25, 2021 by Br. Guy ConsolmagnoFebruary 24, 2021
This entry is part of 60 in the series And Then I Wrote

And then I wrote… in 2014, the national Catholic newspaper Our Sunday Visitor invited me to submit a few words about science and faith…  as anyone who reads these pages knows, it’s hard to shut me up on the topic! This covers familiar ground; but it does it in a way that I hope was very accessible to a popular audience...

“What do I do, if science tells me one thing but religion tells me another thing? Which do I believe?” 

There’s a false assumption at the center of that question – because neither science nor religion are about in “believing” in “things”. 

Our religious belief is not in a “thing,” but in a Person – indeed, Three Persons. Our faith is in the Father, Son, and Spirit as described and identified in the Creed, and in the Church that leads us to those Persons. 

Planetary Nebula NGC 7293, the Helix. VATT image by Brucker, Consolmagno, Romanishin, and Tegler, 2004.

The words of the Creed are important precisely because they identify one very specific God: the Father outside of time and space (already present in the beginning) who deliberately chose to create time and space, and who loves this universe; Jesus who was incarnate in this universe by the Holy Spirit, born of Mary, who lived at a particular time, died in a particular way, was resurrected at a particular moment; and that same Holy Spirit now sent to us as our advocate, present in this universe in our Church. 

When the Creed was written, there were plenty of other gods that some people wanted to believe in. But we Christians specifically reject the pagan nature gods. We no more believe in them than we would worship some other guy named Jesus who lived at a different time and place and had a different history than the Jesus we call Lord.

It’s tempting to turn our worship of the Creator into worshiping a nature god, one who fiddles with how things work in the natural world, like a force alongside electricity and gravity. It’s the same temptation as worshiping a version of “Jesus” who was just a nice guy that came to an unfortunate end, or a version of “Jesus” who was merely deity dressed up in a man-suit. Both the nature god and the simplified “Jesus” are easy to grasp and understand; but they are false. They’re not what Christians believe. 

Just as it’s tricky to understand Jesus as both true God and true man, it’s tricky to understand how the Creator relates to Creation. That’s where science comes in.

Science is our best way of describing how the universe behaves. You might say, where faith tells us that God created the universe, science tells us how He did it. Science is important precisely because...

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Posted in And Then I Wrote | Tagged faith and science | Leave a reply

In the Sky This Week – February 23, 2021

Sacred Space Astronomy avatarPosted on February 23, 2021 by Bob TrembleyFebruary 24, 2021
This entry is part 184 of 184 in the series In the Sky This Week

Millions of people around the planet have seen NASA’s Perseverance Rover descent and touchdown video – I’ve watched it over and over! I tweeted that this landing made me feel like a kid during the Apollo era again! Cameras were not part of the rover’s initial design – and were allowed to be added with the ideas that “they won’t do any harm to the rover, and IF they work, great… you get what you get.” Well what NASA got was a video seen across the globe, and a HUGE positive media boost – not to mention the invaluable engineering data these cameras have provided. Can I just put out there that cameras should be default part of EVERY NASA mission from now on? Look at the Juno mission to Jupiter – the insanely popular citizen-scientist processed images and videos from Juno were obtained from a camera that was not originally part of the mission’s specs, but were added as … Continue reading →

Posted in Astronomy, Outreach | Tagged Dyson Sphere Program, Jupiter, Mars, Mars Perseverance Rover, Mercury, Moon, Saturn, Sun, Supernova 1987A, Uranus | 1 Reply

Arrival: Mars Takes Center Stage As Probes Arrive At The Red Planet!

Sacred Space Astronomy avatarPosted on February 22, 2021 by Fr. James KurzynskiFebruary 24, 2021

These past couple of weeks have greeted us with exciting news from Mars! First, the United Arab Emirates mission to place a weather satellite named Al-Amal into orbit around the red planet was a success! One of the main goals of the “hope probe” is to understand the red planet’s atmosphere. This work will be essential to help solve the mystery of why Mars has lost so much of its original atmosphere. For those interested in following the UAE’s mission, I invite you to visit their website: https://www.emiratesmarsmission.ae/ar. Another bit of exciting news is that NASA’s latest Mars rover and “helicopter” have also arrived at Mars! The Perseverance Rover has an ambitious mission of drilling samples on the red planet to be sent back to Earth by a future mission being planned by NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA). If successful, the future launch of Perseverance’s samples back to Earth will be the first time humans have launched a … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a reply

ⓜ Full Moon-th Meetup: 28 February, 2021

Sacred Space Astronomy avatarPosted on February 21, 2021 by Br. Guy ConsolmagnoFebruary 24, 2021

Featuring Dr. Robert Janusz, and the latest news of the Vatican Advanced Technology Telescope! Just for our paying members: on the next Full Moon (actually, the day after full Moon, this month), Sunday, February 28, we’ll be holding our regular on-line meetup where we get to know and chat with each other, and with astronomers from the Vatican Observatory. This month will feature Fr. Robert Janusz SJ. Those of you who saw our 2019 Specola Annual Report will be familiar with his work, which he does in collaboration with Fr. Rich Boyle; he’s an expert in the reduction of photometry data, the measurement of the brightnesses and colors of stars. In fact his experise is in what the Europeans call “informatics”; he deals with databases, scientific software, client-server applications, GUI etc. He programs basically in languages based on the object-oriented paradigm and SQL.  But his PhD — on this topic — is actually in philosophy! In fact, he worked under … Continue reading →

Posted in Announcement | Tagged Meetup | Leave a reply

Specola Guestbook | September 16, 1934: Pope Pius XI

Sacred Space Astronomy avatarPosted on February 21, 2021 by Robert MackeFebruary 21, 2021
This entry is part 82 of 82 in the series Specola Guestbook

Since its founding in 1891, many people have passed through the doors of the Vatican Observatory.  A quick perusal of our guestbook reveals several Names, including Popes, Nobel laureates, astronauts, actors, and saints. Today’s guestbook entry is not technically from the guest book.  It is from a separate parchment reserved for Popes on their first official visit to the Specola. This tradition was begun when the Vatican Observatory was relocated from within Vatican City out to the Pontifical summer residence in Castel Gandolfo, about 25 km outside of Rome. On September 16, 1934, Pope Pius XI made a visit. Ambrogio Damiano Achille Ratti (1857-1939) was elected Pope in 1922 and took the name Pius.  Prior to his elevation to the Papacy, he was the cardinal archbishop of Milan. In 1929, he and the Italian leader Benito Mussolini signed the Lateran Treaty, in which the nation of Italy formally recognized the Vatican as an independent sovereignty.  As part of this act, … Continue reading →

Posted in Astronomy, History, Uncategorized | Tagged Castel Gandolfo, Pius XI, Pontifical Academy of Sciences, Specola Guestbook, Vatican Observatory | Leave a reply

The Sun Rules!

Sacred Space Astronomy avatarPosted on February 20, 2021 by Christopher M. GraneyFebruary 2, 2021

If they [the stars] are suns having the same nature as our sun, why do not these suns collectively outdistance our sun in brilliance? Why do they all together transmit so dim a light…? When sunlight bursts into a sealed room through a hole made with a tiny pin point, it outshines the fixed stars at once. The difference is practically infinite. So said Johannes Kepler, responding in 1610 to Galileo’s just-published Starry Messenger.  Kepler was arguing against Giordano Bruno’s idea that stars were other suns, orbited by other Earths.  Kepler felt that Galileo’s telescopic observations of stars strengthened the case against Bruno. Kepler’s comments regarding the relative brightnesses of sun and stars are really perceptive.  He knew what he was talking about.  His comments illustrate something about the sun and stars that we probably do not appreciate. Modern astronomers measure the brightness of stars using the “magnitude” system.  The modern system is tied to an ancient rating scale for … Continue reading →

Posted in Astronomy, History | 1 Reply

Rheita trench

Sacred Space Astronomy avatarPosted on February 19, 2021 by Richard HillFebruary 24, 2021
This entry is part 41 of 41 in the series Lunarcy

The area on either side of the crater Metius (90km diameter) seen near center in this image, is complex and fascinating. To the right is the obvious Vallis Rheita, formed when ejecta from the Mare Nectaris impact created a line of over a dozen craters. The crater Rheita (71km) itself can be seen at the top of this line in the image with it’s little central peak. Some lunar researchers see Vallis Rheita as two separate but overlapping troughs as evidenced by the bend in the middle with the farther portion coming from the impact of Nectaris that it points back to, while the western portion (nearer the terminator) points south of the Mare on a line with Fracastorius and Theophilus. Before we move on, notice the odd crater to the right of Rheita, Rheita E, obviously formed from 4 or 5 craters being merged. To the immediate left of Metius is a slightly smaller crater Fabricius (80km) known for … Continue reading →

Posted in Astronomy, Moon, Uncategorized | Tagged Craters, Janssen, Metius, Vallis Rheita | Leave a reply

Mars Inspiration

Sacred Space Astronomy avatarPosted on February 19, 2021 by Deirdre KelleghanFebruary 24, 2021

Perseverance This week Perseverance landed on Mars. What an achievement for both NASA and the world of exploration. It brought back memories of my visit to Cape Canaveral and Kennedy Space Center in 2011. My visit then was to see the launch of Curiosity to Mars. An event that blew me away, or it felt like that at the time. I felt the power of the rocket launch in every cell of my body.  Mars gave me inspiration. This experience led me on to do several paintings. Not precisely right away but in the following years. It takes a long time for such a powerful experience to develop into something that feels real. The painting above is one such work. I created it using a palette knife and thick acrylic paint. In this short video clip below, I explain this painting. Inspiration Curiosity has given us so much information about Mars. It is still going, still exploring on our behalf. … Continue reading →

Posted in Outreach, Space Exploration | Tagged Curiosity, Mars, Mars 2020, Painting, Perseverance | Leave a reply

Skyward by David Levy: February 2021

Sacred Space Astronomy avatarPosted on February 19, 2021 by David LevyFebruary 19, 2021
This entry is part 28 of 28 in the series Skyward by David Levy

Orion in Winter As twilight deepens these evenings, Orion is just clearing the eastern horizon. Robert Frost wrote eloquently in his famous poem “The Star Splitter” “You know Orion always comes up sideways, Throwing a leg up over our fence of mountains.” Whenever I see Orion rising, which is almost every night from fall to midwinter, I am reminded of how poets like Robert Frost saw the mighty hunter as it entered the sky to take command of winter. Even if you have difficulty finding some constellations, the three stars in a row that form Orion’s belt are a giveaway. And if you have a telescope, as Frost did, the view is even better. Just below the belt lies a fainter set of three stars. Surrounding the middle one is a gigantic cloud of hydrogen gas which is the Great Nebula in Orion. It is one of the richest star forming regions in our whole galaxy. During that first winter … Continue reading →

Posted in Astronomy, Outreach | Tagged Betelgeuse, David Levy, Orion, Robert Frost | 1 Reply

ⓜ The Grateful Astronomer, Part 2

Sacred Space Astronomy avatarPosted on February 18, 2021 by Br. Guy ConsolmagnoFebruary 24, 2021
This entry is part 59 of 60 in the series And Then I Wrote

And then I wrote… in 2013 I was invited to give a talk at the Jesuit parish in central London, and then the British online site Thinking Faith invited me to adapt it for one of their postings. They wanted a shorter version to fit their format; here is the original text, about twice as long, divided into two bits for this week and next. Here is Part 2, which starts with a riff that I wound up reusing a lot in later things I wrote… What I’ve come to see, especially given those philosophy courses that the Jesuits made me take as a part of my formation, is that belief itself plays a fundamental role in doing science. There are three religious beliefs that you have to accept on faith before you can be a scientist. You may not think of them as religious, but I can name religions that don’t have these beliefs. The first thing you must … Continue reading →

Posted in And Then I Wrote, Religion | Tagged Cosmology, faith and science, Hawking, Leibnitz | Leave a reply

From the V.O. Faith and Science Pages: Astronomy and the Catholic Church – Stanley L. Jaki

Sacred Space Astronomy avatarPosted on February 17, 2021 by Faith and ScienceJanuary 29, 2021

Today’s featured entry from the Vatican Observatory Faith and Science pages: “Astronomy and the Catholic Church – Stanley L. Jaki” (click here for it) An article by Fr. Stanley L. Jaki for History of Astronomy: An Encyclopedia edited by John Lankford and published in 1996 by Routledge. Routledge describes the book as an encyclopedia that “traces the history of the oldest science from the ancient world to the space age in over 300 entries by leading experts”. [click here to continue] The Faith and Science pages (F&S) are a unique resource on the web. The material in F&S is stuff that you will find nowhere else (or at least not without a lot of digging). Featured areas on F&S include “History of Church and Science”; “Church and Science Today”; “Science and Scripture”; “Science, Religion & Society”; “Life in the Universe”; “Cosmology”; and more. The level of the F&S material ranges from being accessible to all audiences, with even some material … Continue reading →

Posted in From the V.O. Faith and Science Pages | Leave a reply

In the Sky This Week – February 16, 2021

Sacred Space Astronomy avatarPosted on February 16, 2021 by Bob TrembleyFebruary 16, 2021
This entry is part 183 of 184 in the series In the Sky This Week

NASA’s Mars 2020 Perseverance rover lands on Thursday Feb. 18th, and NASA is inviting the public to take part in virtual activities and events as the rover nears entry, descent, and landing. Touchdown on Mars is scheduled for approximately 3:55 p.m. EST Thursday! This will be the second landing on Mars using the sky crane maneuver to lower the heavy rover down to the surface. The waxing crescent Moon appears high in the west-southwestern sky after sunset on Feb. 16th. The Moon appears near Mars high in the southern sky after sunset on Feb. 18th, then by the star Aldebaran on Feb. 19th and 20th. Mercury and Saturn appear low above the east-southeastern horizon before dawn this week; by early next week those two planets will be a bit higher above the horizon, and Jupiter will join them. In a previous post, I wondered if a space telescope observing the Sun would catch a glimpse of these planets… sure did! … Continue reading →

Posted in Astronomy, Outreach, Space Exploration | Tagged Jupiter, M1-63, Mars, Mars Perseverance Rover, Mercury, Moon, Parker Solar Probe, Saturn, Sun, TOI 451 | 5 Replies

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Recent Posts

ⓜ Believing in things…

Sacred Space Astronomy avatarPosted on February 25, 2021 by Br. Guy ConsolmagnoFebruary 24, 2021
This entry is part of 60 in the series And Then I Wrote

And then I wrote… in 2014, the national Catholic newspaper Our Sunday Visitor invited me to submit a few words about science and faith…  as anyone who reads these pages knows, it’s hard to shut me up on the topic! This covers familiar ground; but it does it in a … Continue reading…

Posted in And Then I Wrote | Tagged faith and science | Leave a reply

In the Sky This Week – February 23, 2021

Sacred Space Astronomy avatarPosted on February 23, 2021 by Bob TrembleyFebruary 24, 2021
This entry is part 184 of 184 in the series In the Sky This Week

Millions of people around the planet have seen NASA’s Perseverance Rover descent and touchdown video – I’ve watched it over and over! I tweeted that this landing made me feel like a kid during the Apollo era again! Cameras were not part of the rover’s initial design – and were … Continue reading…

Posted in Astronomy, Outreach | Tagged Dyson Sphere Program, Jupiter, Mars, Mars Perseverance Rover, Mercury, Moon, Saturn, Sun, Supernova 1987A, Uranus | 1 Reply

Arrival: Mars Takes Center Stage As Probes Arrive At The Red Planet!

Sacred Space Astronomy avatarPosted on February 22, 2021 by Fr. James KurzynskiFebruary 24, 2021

These past couple of weeks have greeted us with exciting news from Mars! First, the United Arab Emirates mission to place a weather satellite named Al-Amal into orbit around the red planet was a success! One of the main goals of the “hope probe” is to understand the red planet’s … Continue reading…

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a reply

ⓜ Full Moon-th Meetup: 28 February, 2021

Sacred Space Astronomy avatarPosted on February 21, 2021 by Br. Guy ConsolmagnoFebruary 24, 2021

Featuring Dr. Robert Janusz, and the latest news of the Vatican Advanced Technology Telescope! Just for our paying members: on the next Full Moon (actually, the day after full Moon, this month), Sunday, February 28, we’ll be holding our regular on-line meetup where we get to know and chat with … Continue reading…

Posted in Announcement | Tagged Meetup | Leave a reply

Specola Guestbook | September 16, 1934: Pope Pius XI

Sacred Space Astronomy avatarPosted on February 21, 2021 by Robert MackeFebruary 21, 2021
This entry is part 82 of 82 in the series Specola Guestbook

Since its founding in 1891, many people have passed through the doors of the Vatican Observatory.  A quick perusal of our guestbook reveals several Names, including Popes, Nobel laureates, astronauts, actors, and saints. Today’s guestbook entry is not technically from the guest book.  It is from a separate parchment reserved … Continue reading…

Posted in Astronomy, History, Uncategorized | Tagged Castel Gandolfo, Pius XI, Pontifical Academy of Sciences, Specola Guestbook, Vatican Observatory | Leave a reply

The Sun Rules!

Sacred Space Astronomy avatarPosted on February 20, 2021 by Christopher M. GraneyFebruary 2, 2021

If they [the stars] are suns having the same nature as our sun, why do not these suns collectively outdistance our sun in brilliance? Why do they all together transmit so dim a light…? When sunlight bursts into a sealed room through a hole made with a tiny pin point, … Continue reading…

Posted in Astronomy, History | 1 Reply
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Recent Comments

  • Fr. Bruce Wilkinson February 23, 2021 at 4:05 pm on In the Sky This Week – February 23, 2021I completely agree with you that putting cameras on EVERY space mission - without question and without fail. The ability to see the accomplishments of the various robotic missions have inspired future generations to want to become part of the space exploration crowd
  • Ed Yepez February 20, 2021 at 7:51 am on The Sun Rules!Excellent! Thank you very much for presenting this in such an understandable form. Also let me appreciate the math.(a lot of which I had forgotten) With Kepler, how you can make the correct observations, yet still come to an erroneous conclusion? But the observations remain correct, even useful for further...
  • Bob Trembley February 19, 2021 at 5:16 am on In the Sky This Week – February 16, 2021I joined a NASA Night Sky Network Zoom Watch Party - it was pretty cool! When I joined, an engineer was talking about his work on the helicopter - those wings are HUGE! I watched the the landing with my in-laws; it was cool to see the same image up...
  • Richard Hill February 19, 2021 at 12:54 am on Skyward by David Levy: February 2021Very nice meteor photo! Reminds me of one Geminid I saw as I was walking to night lunch on Kitt Peak. It passed right through Orion. Burned a memory in my brain.
  • Benjamin Goodison February 18, 2021 at 5:26 pm on In the Sky This Week – February 16, 2021... and three days later, Perseverance finally touched down successfully and is snapping its first images!I'm sure there were more than a few spontaneous prayers in the NASA control room in those last few minutes... there certainly were at my end :) Really looking forward to the wealth of new...
  • Bob Trembley February 16, 2021 at 8:31 am on In the Sky This Week – February 16, 2021Oh my goodness! Thank you SO MUCH for the kind replies!
  • Joseph O'Donnell February 16, 2021 at 8:00 am on In the Sky This Week – February 16, 2021Thank you for this. Always so helpful and enlightening.
  • Stan Sienkiewicz February 16, 2021 at 7:47 am on In the Sky This Week – February 16, 2021Bob, another great post. Wonderful way to start the day. Thanks for putting in the time to create these posts. Educational, beautiful, and awe inspiring. I really appreciate seeing these each week. Thank you, Stan
  • Fr. James Kurzynski February 12, 2021 at 10:40 pm on Space Exploration As An Act Of Interfaith Dialogue.Thanks Joel! I greatly appreciate your insight and encouragement!
  • Fr. James Kurzynski February 10, 2021 at 10:46 am on Polar Vortex, Snowy Owls, Puffins, and Answering the Question: Fr. James, If Global Warming Is Real, Why Am I So Cold?Thanks for you response! My apologies if it came across that Wisconsin was the southernmost Snowy Owls travel. That was not my intent. In my prep, I saw articles of sightings as south as Texas. The point being that some birds go south, others don't, and its a bit of...
  • Jim Cook February 10, 2021 at 8:05 am on Polar Vortex, Snowy Owls, Puffins, and Answering the Question: Fr. James, If Global Warming Is Real, Why Am I So Cold?Wisconsin is actually NOT very far south to find Snowy Owls in winter, as you can see from its eBird range map: https://ebird.org/science/status-and-trends/snoowl1/range-map I've subscribed to eBird's Snowy Owl reports list for almost 10 years now and while some years have seen more reports of sightings than others, they typically...
  • Fr. Timothy Sauppé February 8, 2021 at 8:38 am on A telescope made by an Angel…Br. Guy: This would make a great beginning to your opening address to the Solar Eclipse Retreat in 2024 for Bishops/Priests. I am going to save this. Fr. Timothy Sauppé
  • Richard Saam February 7, 2021 at 10:20 am on JWST update – Hexagons in SpaceI want to make an additional point on hexagons: In the realm of crystallography as described in solid state physics, there is an equivalence between real(energy) and reciprocal(momentum) hexagonal space. This was mathematically presented in Charles Kittel's (recently deceased) text "Introduction to Solid State Physics". And then something to ponder:...
  • Joel Hopko February 1, 2021 at 11:23 am on Space Exploration As An Act Of Interfaith Dialogue.Fr. Kurzynski -- I too was very moved by the Emirates and the other national efforts (Japanese, Indian etc.) Like you I found in them an expression of the human spirit and even the religious wellsprings that can inspire us toward a shared destiny beyond our fear and confusion. Thanks...
  • Richard Saam February 1, 2021 at 10:33 am on JWST update – Hexagons in SpaceAdding to Fernando's comments 'hexagons are pretty much everywhere in the universe': It can be argued that universal space time can be expressed as oscillating virtual hexagonal (~50 cm, ~8 hr) lattice units conforming to the conservation of energy and momentum and the universe vacuum energy density. There is some...
  • Christopher M. Graney January 27, 2021 at 9:05 am on Faith, Science and Astronomy TextbooksGood! Glad to hear it. As for myself I still think they need more on Kepler, at least if they are going to throw in bits of history with any religion content. It would help with those many students who are afraid that science is all about being non-theistic.
  • Joel Hopko January 24, 2021 at 12:24 pm on Faith, Science and Astronomy TextbooksProfessor Graney -- Call me easily placated, but I was actually somewhat relieved that most of the texts reviewed at least attempted to provide some nuance to the Galileo narrative. Certainly an improvement over the "martyr for science" trope so frequently dispensed over popular media. Obviously much work remains, but...
  • Fr. James Kurzynski January 20, 2021 at 6:48 am on Space Missions In 2021: What Are You Most Excited To See In This New Year?Thanks Janine! I love your reflection on the Al Amal mission! I was so impressed with the video they produced and, yes, I can't wait to see the United Arab Emirates contribution to science! It's something that isn't mentioned much, but should be mentioned more: True science, by its very...
  • Janine Samz January 19, 2021 at 9:37 am on Space Missions In 2021: What Are You Most Excited To See In This New Year?Thank you, Father. Let's see. I am drawn to three! The Emirates one is interesting because of the extent of what they are looking for and from history I know the Arab culture used to be a leader in science. It would be interesting to see them at work again...
  • Christopher M. Graney January 19, 2021 at 8:59 am on “Cosmos: Possible Worlds”, 10-13: Goodbye to a Losing SeasonMy experience with students and the general public is that a reasonable number of people will be amazed by the real universe. For example, people who saw the conjunction on the 21st were generally amazed. But certainly Cosmos seems to think that stuff has to be over the top.

Top Posts

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    ⓜ Believing in things...
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  • ⓜ Full Moon-th Meetup: 28 February, 2021
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