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Br. Guy Consolmagno

About Br. Guy Consolmagno

Brother Guy Consolmagno SJ is Director of the the Vatican Observatory and President of the Vatican Observatory Foundation. A native of Detroit, Michigan, he earned undergraduate and masters' degrees from MIT, and a Ph. D. in Planetary Science from the University of Arizona; he was a postdoctoral research fellow at Harvard and MIT, served in the US Peace Corps (Kenya), and taught university physics at Lafayette College before entering the Jesuits in 1989.

At the Vatican Observatory since 1993, his research explores connections between meteorites, asteroids, and the evolution of small solar system bodies, observing Kuiper Belt comets with the Vatican's 1.8 meter telescope in Arizona, and applying his measure of meteorite physical properties to understanding asteroid origins and structure. Along with more than 200 scientific publications, he is the author of a number of popular books including Turn Left at Orion (with Dan Davis), and most recently Would You Baptize an Extraterrestial? (with Father Paul Mueller, SJ). He also has hosted science programs for BBC Radio 4, been interviewed in numerous documentary films, appeared on The Colbert Report, and for more than ten years he has written a monthly science column for the British Catholic magazine, The Tablet.

Dr. Consolmagno's work has taken him to every continent on Earth; for example, in 1996 he spent six weeks collecting meteorites with a NASA team on the blue ice regions of East Antarctica. He has served on the governing boards of the Meteoritical Society; the American Astronomical Society Division for Planetary Sciences (of which he was chair in 2006-2007); and IAU Commission 16 (Planets and Satellites). In 2000, the small bodies nomenclature committee of the IAU named an asteroid, 4597 Consolmagno, in recognition of his work. In 2014 he received the Carl Sagan Medal from the American Astronomical Society Division for Planetary Sciences for excellence in public communication in planetary sciences.

Across the Universe: Limits to Understanding

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This entry is part 19 of 178 in the series Across the Universe

First published in The Tablet in February, 2008; we ran it here in 2015. I’ve moved it to March this time around, to fit the Lenten theme at the end. The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), a prestigious umbrella group of American scientists, convened this past weekend [2008] in Boston. At the same time, in a hotel on the other side of town, a few hundred science fiction fans were gathered to meet their friends and talk about their favorite writers. I sat on science-and-religion panels at both conventions. The AAAS panel was concerned about “Communicating Science in a Religious America.” In spite of several legal victories by the scientific community defending the teaching of evolution in public schools, the “Intelligent Design” movement in America is still winning the public relations wars. Barely half of polled adults there say they believe in evolution, the lowest numbers of any industrialized nation. Though no one on the panel put … Continue reading →

Across the Universe: One Fix Leads to Another

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This entry is part 18 of 178 in the series Across the Universe

First published in The Tablet in February, 2007; we first ran it here in 2016. I’ve moved it to March, this year, to fit the Lenten season. With my colleague Dan Britt from the University of Central Florida, for several years I’ve been measuring the densities and porosities of meteorites. The densities of different meteorite classes can be compared with their parent asteroids, to see how loosely packed they are; and the porosity of these rocks is an indication of how thoroughly their fabric has been cracked by the shock of the impacts that shattered those parent bodies. We started with the collection I curate at the Vatican; but there are many meteorite types that are underrepresented there. When I came to New York [in 2007] for a year’s sabbatical at Fordham University, I had hoped to extend our data by looking at the nearby American Museum of Natural History’s extensive collection. But things got off to a slow start. … Continue reading →

ⓜ Diary of March 8, 2019

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This entry is part 38 of 38 in the series Diary

It’s an amazing morning; for the first time in about three weeks I don’t have some deadline that has to be met by today, and I can actually catch my breath! Some Stats: But first, my monthly (a bit late this month!) summary of statistics. As of this writing we have 8,336 people signed up to get notifications of these posts either via Twitter, Facebook, or directly asking for email updates here. That’s not quite a hundred more than last month, when we had 8242. And we’re up to 120 subscribers, an addition of 4 new members. Thanks, and welcome! If we could double the size of the readership, would we double the number of supporters? It’s probably not that simple… but it would certainly help. And what’s new: So what is it that has kept me so busy? Travel to Kentucky and Ohio (including in Wapakoneta, the home of Neil Armstrong);  the Tucson Festival of Books; and talks to … Continue reading →

From the Tablet: Why is Ash Wednesday So Late This Year?

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This entry is part 62 of 178 in the series Across the Universe

This column ran in The Tablet for the new year’s issue of 2008, when Easter occurred remarkably early, on March 23. It was relatively early in 2016, on March 27th, when we ran it here. This year, it’s about as late as it can be! Early or late, the explanation is the same… and so probably worth running again. Why is Ash Wednesday so late this year? Contrary to popular conception, the Vatican Observatory doesn’t set the date of Easter. (We don’t cast horoscopes for the Pope, or evangelize UFOs, either.) But since Pope Gregory’s reform of the calendar in 1582 marked the beginning of the Vatican’s support for astronomy, we have a historical connection. Our calendars have always been marked by a confusion of days, planets, and gods. Even today, our week begins with the Sun’s day, followed by the Moon’s day and ending with Saturn’s Day. The month (think, “moonth”) was originally based on the 29.5 day period of the Moon, … Continue reading →

Across the Universe: Japan

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This entry is part 61 of 178 in the series Across the Universe

This column first ran in The Tablet in March 2011, soon after the Tohoku earthquake and tsunami that devastated Japan. We ran it here in 2015. This year we’re swapping March columns with February columns… I had wanted to follow up here on the results of the Hayabusa mission, which I have mentioned many times over the years in this column. This was the probe the Japanese Space Agency had sent to asteroid Itokawa, which touched the surface of that asteroid in late 2005. After overcoming a number of technical crises, including the failure of the system they’d devised to get chunks of rock into a sample canister, the probe actually succeeded in sending its sample return capsule to the Australia desert during the summer of 2010. Since the sampling system had failed, the most they could have hoped to recover were a few bits of dust inside the container. Their silence in the following months had led me to conclude that they had … Continue reading →

ⓜ Diary for February 25, 2019

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This entry is part 37 of 38 in the series Diary

(ⓜ = members only!) Back home in Tucson (and about to leave for another trip!)… The usual daily task is answering emails. But my emails tend to lead me down interesting rabbit holes: Giordano Bruno (I got two questions about him this week), what it’s like to attend a science fiction convention, and updates on book chapters both newly published and overdue… Two emails about book chapters, in fact: On behalf of Joseph W. Koterski, S.J. and Graham Oppy, I am pleased to announce the publication of Theism and Atheism: Opposing Arguments in Philosophyin both print and as an eBook. Citation information for the title is as follows: Joseph W. Koterski, S.J. and Graham Oppy, eds. Theism and Atheism: Opposing Arguments in Philosophy. Farmington Hills, MI: Gale, 2019. I finally got to read the atheists’ arguments based on science. Um… I’m not convinced. At the same time I got another email reminding me that back in 2017 I had promised a … Continue reading →

Across the Universe: Reflections on a Mirror

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This entry is part 60 of 178 in the series Across the Universe

This column first ran in The Tablet in March 2010, and again here in 2015. We’re swapping February and March posts this year since most of the February posts from years past were about Lent, which doesn’t start this year until March. The International Astronomical Union’s committee on planetary surfaces nomenclature (on which I serve as their resident “Latin expert” which no doubt would shock my high school Latin teachers) has voted [in 2010] to give a smooth surface feature on Saturn’s moon Titan the name “Jingpo Lacus”, after Jingpo Lake in China. From the way they reflect radar waves, regions like these on Titan’s surface appear to be very, very smooth. Our best guess is that they’re pools of liquid hydrocarbons, something like lakes of liquid natural gas. Titan’s atmosphere, about twice that of Earth’s, has methane clouds and apparently conditions that allow for this methane to rain out and pool on the surface, much like water does on … Continue reading →

Across the Universe: Europa

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This entry is part 55 of 178 in the series Across the Universe

This column first ran in The Tablet in February, 2009; we ran it here for the first time in 2016. Under the dim light of a distant sun, a cold white ball smaller than our Moon orbits a huge gas planet, garishly striped with colored clouds. Galileo first saw this jovian moon – to be named “Europa” by his rival, Simon Marius – on January 7, 1610. In 1805, Laplace had worked out Europa’s mass (using an elaborate theory of the moons’ orbits), and other 19th century astronomers timed the way the Jupiter moons shadowed each other to estimate their sizes. By the end of that century clever instruments allowed Pickering to estimate its brightness. All the information was there. From these data, any schoolchild could have calculated that Europa was less dense than rock, more dense than ice, and brilliantly white. But no one actually put all that information together until 1908, when Pickering finally noted the low density and … Continue reading →

ⓜ Diary for February 11, 2019

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This entry is part 36 of 38 in the series Diary

(ⓜ = members only!) This week… a trip to Boston, with my immediate schedule, and a sneak peek of a coming big deal, for members only…   I am on the train from Boston to Philadelphia as I write this. On Monday afternoon I am speaking at Bodek Lounge, Houston Hall, University of Pennsylvania (free admission but register online), then Tuesday I head back to Boston for talks at Harvard on Wednesday and Thursday. Friday finds me at the great Boston science fiction convention, Boskone:   My Schedule for Boskone 56: My Favorite World 15 Feb 2019, Friday 18:00 – 18:50, Burroughs (Westin) What fictional (or nonfictional) world would you most like to visit? Or inhabit? What makes it particularly attractive to you? Our panelists join in a lively, fun discussion of what it takes to become a preferred planet — and whether or not we need an escape plan to get back. Why do/don’t all our choices measure up? … Continue reading →

Across the Universe: Stories of the Belt

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This entry is part 1 of 178 in the series Across the Universe

This column first ran in The Tablet in February 2018 January 31 [2018] marked the sixtieth anniversary of the launch of Explorer 1, the first American spacecraft to orbit the Earth. I was five years old; it affected my dreams and aspirations, not to mention my education in science, over the next twenty years. As the story goes, the American rocket and satellite was thrown together in 90 days to answer the launch of Russia’s Sputnik satellite the previous October… and the disaster of our Vanguard rocket, which had blown up on the launch pad. It most notable achievement was the discovery of the Van Allen Belts. Twenty years later, Dr. James Van Allen spoke at my graduate class in space sciences. I recall him describing how he chose to put a Geiger counter into the Explorer satellite because it was cheap, off the shelf, and provided data that was easy to radio back to Earth. They hoped to detect ionized gas … Continue reading →

ⓜ Last (two) weeks at the Specola: February 2, 2019

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This entry is part 35 of 38 in the series Diary

(ⓜ = members only!) This week… a trip to Oral Roberts University, an interview in our chapel, and a surprise treat for our annual board dinner…   I get to travel to a lot of places that you wouldn’t expect a Vatican official to go. Among them have been Goshen College (run by the Mennonites), Brigham Young University (the Mormons, of course), and this month, Oral Roberts University. We really do…   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!   … Continue reading →

Across the Universe: The best way to travel

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This entry is part 16 of 178 in the series Across the Universe

First published in The Tablet in January, 2007; we first ran it here in 2015.  Dark and dreary, January is a time to take off to new and exotic climes; or at least, to daydream about such trips. My own January voyage was a visit to my old hometown, snow-dusted Detroit, to attend a science fiction convention. But a panel discussion at that meeting, “Travel Destinations of the Solar System,” challenged us to imagine really exotic localities. Where among the planets would we love to go? And what it would be like to be standing there, in person? Panelist Bill Higgins, a radiation physicist at Fermi Lab in Chicago [and occasional blogger here at The Catholic Astronomer!], regularly presents spaceflight results as a NASA “Solar System Ambassador” at events like this. He described how Pluto and its moon Charon orbit each other while locked in a spin state that keeps each body always facing the other. “What if we could … Continue reading →