(And Then I Wrote...) In order to let my backlog of "Across the Universe" columns build up a bit, I am republishing a selection of other articles that I have written and published in various places... 

I'm not the only guy to use the microscope in my meteorite lab; this chemist from Argentina brought his own white lab coat...

The year 2009 marked the 400th anniversary of Galileo's telescope, and there were a number of articles and publications in its honor. This one I wrote for a special publication in the US in honor of the International Year of Astronomy... and as an extra treat, it includes yet another funny story about the big gas spectra tube at the U of Arizona Lunar Lab that I wrote about last month in our "Stupid Astronomer" series...

In my astronomical work, I use a microscope as much as a telescope. Though I do spend time every year observing at the Vatican Advanced Technology Telescope in southern Arizona, the majority of my time is spent in a laboratory in the gardens of the Pope’s summer home outside Rome, measuring the physical properties of meteorites. 

Nowadays almost all of our ability to explore the universe, using the light gathered by telescopes, depends on work done here on Earth in laboratories like those here at the Vatican Observatory. The most obvious use of laboratory data in telescope astronomy...

[In order to read the rest of this post, you have to be a paid-up member of Sacred Space, and logged in as such!]