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Christopher M. Graney

About Christopher M. Graney

Christopher M. Graney is an Adjunct Scholar at the Vatican Observatory, and Professor of physics and astronomy at Jefferson Community & Technical College in Louisville, Kentucky (USA), where he helps keep the college’s observatory running. For some years now his research focus has been the history of astronomy, especially the late 16th and early 17th centuries. That research has resulted in two books: Setting Aside All Authority: Giovanni Battista Riccioli and the Science Against Copernicus in the Age of Galileo (2015), and Mathematical Disquisitions: The Booklet of Theses Immortalized by Galileo (2017), both published by the University of Notre Dame Press. Graney is also editor of the Vatican Observatory Faith and Science pages.

The Sun’s Many Strange Neighbors (re-run)

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This post originally ran in the summer of 2017. I’m re-running it in advance of a post that will appear in two weeks that will talk about Johannes Kepler’s ideas about the nature of stars. The table at right* shows the distance to and luminosity of the twenty stars closest to our solar system. Distance is measured in light years (meaning that if a star is 10 light years from Earth, then it would require 10 years to reach that star, travelling at the speed of light). Luminosity, or power output, is given in terms of the Sun’s output (so a star with the same power output as our Sun would have a luminosity of 1). The stars in this table are the solar system’s twenty nearest neighbors. Notice what a wimpy lot our neighbors are. Yes, there are some respectable stars among the bunch—obviously Sirius A, with 22 times (22x) the Sun’s power output, is a serious*~ star. Sirius … Continue reading →

The Lion King’s Sky

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I saw the new “Lion King” movie last month.  Whether you think it is a good movie or a bad movie, you would have to agree that it is an impressive bit of computer animation.  The artists at Disney worked hard to get so many details so realistic.  As I watched the movie, I could almost believe that animals can talk. So why did Disney put so little realism into the sky?  As an astro-nerd, I found myself scoffing and sneering at pretty much every sky scene.  For example, I think in one shot the sun rose straight up, as though Pride Rock was close to the equator (which makes sense).  But then in another scene, the sun rose at a noticeable angle—up and to the right, as though the location were significantly further north.  And I did not recognize any constellations among the stars in the movie sky. I can’t be sure about those two things.  I do not … Continue reading →

Religious Scientists on Vatican Observatory Faith and Science

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There is new thing on the Vatican Observatory Faith and Science archive!  We have added a new section—“Religious Scientists”.  We mean “religious scientists” in a broad sense: scientists who are people of faith, believers in God. There are two parts to this new section.  The first part is a listing of different scientists whose work is featured in the archive.  For each scientist, there is a link that takes you to the different entries in the archive related to that scientist.  Some of the scientists in the listing are well-known—Isaac Newton, for example.  Others are not so well known—William F. Rigge, S.J., for example. The second part is a simple listing of religious scientists.  Information about each scientist is limited.  However, the second part includes many more scientists compared to the first part. It is important to understand that both parts are listings of religious scientists, not saintly scientists.  Scientists are not always saintly.  Scientists are also often independent-minded and … Continue reading →

The Sun Illuminates Nuestra Señora de la Purisima Concepción

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Two days ago, on the Feast of the Assumption, a remarkable and very cool thing happened at Mission Nuestra Señora de la Purisima Concepción de Acuña in San Antonio, Texas—at least it happened if the skies were clear.  The sun illuminated the floor in front of the church’s altar, and the wall behind the altar, in a particularly cool fashion, at around 6:30 pm local time.  This sort of illumination happens every Feast of the Assumption, and has recently become somewhat famous in San Antonio, gathering some attention from local media in the past few years. Mission Concepción is one of a series of missions established by Spanish Franciscans along the San Antonio River during the early eighteenth century.  The church was completed in 1755.  The San Antonio Missions are today active Catholic churches in the Archdiocese of San Antonio, while also being part of the San Antonio Missions National Historical Park, and a UN World Heritage Site. The story … Continue reading →

The Observant Faithful find the Tears of St. Lawrence

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Today is the feast of St. Lawrence.  Keep a watchful eye over the next few nights for his tears! Yes, the “Tears of St. Lawrence” is an old name for the Perseid meteor shower.  The Perseid shower peaks on the morning of August 12 (more or less).  It is named for the constellation of Perseus, the region of the sky where the meteors appear to originate.  For a long time—dating back to Aristotle at least—astronomers did not consider meteors to be an astronomical phenomenon.  They were thought to be a wholly atmospheric phenomenon, like clouds or rainbows or lightning.  Think of the name meteor.  Who does the weather forecast on your local TV news?  The meteorologist—a scientist who studies the atmosphere. But on the night of November 12-13 in 1833 there was a meteor storm.  Meteors flashed across the sky at a rate of over 1000 per minute.  That is tens of meteors each second.  Multiple meteors would be visible … Continue reading →

History of Astronomy at the University of Notre Dame, 2019

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If you like the history of astronomy, then you should attend one of the History of Astronomy Workshops that are held at the University of Notre Dame every other year.  The Fourteenth Biennial History of Astronomy Workshop was held this summer, June 19-22.  The Vatican Observatory Foundation helped sponsor the workshop this year.  After all, the workshop is a conference about astronomy and about history, and it is held at a major Catholic University.  So it is just the V.O.’s sort of thing. Every Notre Dame workshop has a theme.  This year’s theme focused on the impact that images, both captured and created, have had on the history of astronomy.  A broad variety of images have served as a medium for advances and discoveries in astronomy, including early depictions of constellations and cosmologies the many centuries of images created to record and convey astronomical knowledge artistic and symbolic uses of astronomical imagery the development of the telescope, the camera, and … Continue reading →

Solar Power in Ruin

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The sun puts of 3.8×1026 Watts of power.  That is its luminosity: 380,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 Watts, or 380 septillion Watts.  As best science can tell, this power comes from nuclear fusion reactions occurring in the sun’s core.  These reactions are converting the sun’s mass into energy via E=mc2.  The sun devours billions of kilograms of mass every second.  If you read this blog regularly, you saw this all discussed—with math!—in my post from earlier this month (click here for it). Since the Earth is small, and 93 million miles from the sun, we receive a minuscule fraction of that power.  Nevertheless, each square meter (an area the size of a large bath towel) of sun-facing surface on Earth receives over 1000 Watts of solar power.  “Sun-facing” means, of course, that the night side of Earth, for example, is not receiving any direct solar power.  Moreover, the effect of those solar Watts depends on many factors; consider the difference on a summer day … Continue reading →

Lunar Eavesdropping: Two Men, a Radio, and Apollo 11 (re-run)

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In honor of the Fiftieth Anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing, I am today “re-running” this slightly edited combination of two posts that originally ran last summer. Today we celebrate the Fiftieth Anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing.*  I wish those celebrations included more recognition of a unique accomplishment that is part of the Apollo 11 story but that is widely unknown: the work of Larry Baysinger—a man from my home town of Louisville, Kentucky—who independently detected signals from the Apollo 11 astronauts as they walked on the lunar surface.  Baysinger’s accomplishments were recorded and promptly published in the Louisville Courier-Journal, by another Louisvillian by the name of Glenn Rutherford, who later went on to be editor of the newspaper of the Archdiocese of Louisville, The Record. Rutherford was a 23-year-old reporter for the Courier-Journal, and his article about Baysinger was published under the headline “Lunar Eavesdropping:  Louisvillians hear moon walk talk on homemade equipment”.  Baysinger was a … Continue reading →

Kentucky Science Conversations – Teaching Our Faith (and Science)

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The Archdiocese of Louisville (Kentucky) has been talking science.  During the month of May, five articles on faith and science appeared in our diocesan newspaper, The Record.  They were part of the “Teaching Our Faith” series that the paper runs periodically.  I do not think such things are common in the pages of diocesan papers.  I do think more science in diocesan papers would be a great thing. The “Teaching Our Faith” articles were the idea of Louisville’s Archbishop, Joseph Kurtz.  Archbishop Kurtz contributed a guest post to The Catholic Astronomer (now Sacred Space Astronomy) last November.  At that time I told the story about how in September 2017, with astronomy “in the air” thanks to the August 2017 eclipse, Prof. Gerry Williger, an astronomer at the University of Louisville here in Kentucky, sent an invitation to Archbishop Kurtz to attend some of the talks that are part of the Public Astronomy Lecture Series hosted by UofL’s Department of Physics and Astronomy.  Archbishop … Continue reading →

The Far Sun – Far Beyond Comprehension

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Does it seem dim outside?  Well, it should—sort of.  Because it is dim outside—sort of. On this past Thursday, July 4, just before the end of the day as seen from London (at 11:10 pm British Standard Time), the Earth was at the aphelion point of its orbit—the point at which it is farthest from the sun.  At that time it was 94,513,221 miles from the sun.  By contrast, at its perihelion point (closest to the sun), on January 3, Earth was merely 91,403,554 miles from the sun. Earth is over 3,100,000 miles farther away from the sun now than it was in January.  Of course, that is only a 3.4% difference.  But if you observed the sun carefully, and measured its apparent diameter, you could see that difference.  The fact that the distance between the sun and the Earth changes has been known since antiquity. The sun is a remarkable object, really beyond our comprehension in many ways. First … Continue reading →

Max Planck on Religion and Science

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My post from last week was about a cool entry on the Vatican Observatory—Faith and Science site about Enrico Fermi (click here for that post).  I had come across Fermi again as I was doing a periodic review of all 500 entries in the site (which I edit), looking for errors and broken links. In that same review, I came across some other cool entries regarding Max Planck.  Planck was one of the key figures in the development of quantum mechanics.  I was thinking about doing a post on these Planck entries when Fr. Kurzynski’s “Dispelling the Myth” post appeared (click here for it).  Upon reading about yet another instance of the promotion in schools of the idea that there is conflict between religion and science, and about Fr. Kurzynski’s effort to present “an image of peace between faith and science”, I decided that a focus on Planck is in order. Again, in my opinion the best material to address … Continue reading →

Enrico Fermi, the Farmer, and the Sky

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Look to the top of your screen.  There it says Vatican Observatory—The Catholic Astronomer—Sacred Space Astronomy.  You are looking at one pretty cool science site.  But there is a sister site here, too: Vatican Observatory—Faith and Science.  I edit that site, meaning I get to do cool stuff like read interesting books for the purpose of finding good content for the site, and I have to do tedious stuff like periodically plow through all 500 entries in the site, looking for errors and broken links. Recently that plowing brought me to, and refreshed my memory of, a really great Vatican Observatory—Faith and Science (VOF&S) entry, on Enrico Fermi (1901-1954).  Fermi was one of the 20th century’s great physicists.  He was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1938.  His contributions to science are too numerous to list here, and the VOF&S entry is not about those contributions; it is about his recollection of the thoughts of an Italian farmer regarding the night sky … Continue reading →