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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.

Astronomy in Art & Architecture: A Spacecraft of Stone

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Astronomically-themed art does not always show up where you might expect. You might visit a large art museum and find almost no astronomical imagery at all, and then you might go to a market and find astronomical imagery in abundance. And then, you might drive through a small town in Indiana, and find there, in the middle of a town park, a forty-foot tall stone monument to astronomy—or more specifically, to the exploration of space. The town is Mitchell, Indiana, and the monument is a representation of Virgil I. “Gus” Grissom’s Gemini spacecraft, standing atop a cluster of large stone panels that relay Grissom’s professional accomplishments.* Grissom was one of the original Mercury 7 U.S. astronauts. He was the first human being to return to space: he went into space on the Liberty Bell 7 mission on July 21, 1961, and then again on the Gemini 3 mission on March 23, 1965. He was also one of the three astronauts … Continue reading →

Space Race Mathematician

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Katherine Johnson died last month, at the age of 101.  If her name does not ring a bell then you probably never read the book Hidden Figures: The American Dream and the Untold Story of the Black Women Mathematicians Who Helped Win the Space Race, and you probably never saw the movie Hidden Figures.  Both book and movie are about a group of mathematicians who worked at NASA Langley during the “Space Race”, when the United States was in competition with the Soviet Union over prowess in space.  The mathematicians in Hidden Figures were all women, and all African American.  They worked at Langley, in Virginia in the U.S.A., at a time when the state of Virginia was fiercely devoted to racial segregation. All the Langley women were talented, but Katherine Johnson seems to have been particularly brilliant, and she has been particularly honored over time.  NASA has a Katherine Johnson computing facility.  Johnson was awarded the Presidential Medal of … Continue reading →

Venus and the Moon Danced at the Vatican Observatory Summer School

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It is time for another guest post from Fernando Comerón.  Fernando is an astronomer with the European Southern Observatory.  His previous guest postings have been about using one of the world’s best telescopes at ESO in Chile (click here for that post) and about discovering the source of illumination of the North America Nebula (click here for that one) . About this new post, he writes “it is not about professional astronomy and large telescopes, but the subject has a much closer connection with the Vatican Observatory and I thought that readers of the blog may like to read the story”.  Muchas gracias, Dr. Comerón.  ¡Que los cielos sobre Chile estén despejados siempre que observes! Fernando Comerón, 25 Nov 2019 This story is not about observing with large professional telescopes on remote mountaintops, but about an observation done with one of the telescopes that some of the readers of Sacred Space Astronomy, perhaps yourself, support through the Vatican Observatory Foundation. … Continue reading →

Fr. Grienberger the Astronomer, and his Homemade Pi

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Today is “Pi Day”! This post is part of a series of posts on Pi, infinity, and other things mathematical. Click here for the series. What is Pi (π)?  We celebrate “Pi Day” on March 14 (3/14).  That is because Pi is (roughly) 3.14.  Indeed, I scheduled this post to appear at 1:59 AM, because Pi is (a little less roughly) 3.14159!  How nerdy can a guy get? So Pi is a mathematical idea that has its own day.  That is good, because astronomy involves a lot of mathematical ideas.  But still, what is Pi, and how do we know what it is? This question started bugging me after I bought my previous laptop.  For some reason the calculator “app” on this laptop was striking in a way that older calculator apps were not.  Perhaps this is because the new app was large and bold.  But at any rate, note how the button for π (that is, Pi) on the … Continue reading →

Science and the Smell of the Violet

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Science.  Religion.  The Humanities.  Which has the upper hand regarding claims about what is true?  Many would say Science.  It is based on evidence and reason.  It is reproducible.  It is self-correcting.  It has produced the modern world, and it is what the modern world values most.  Regarding Science and the Humanities, just think of the rising support for STEM subjects in education, and the declining support for the Humanities.  Regarding Science and Religion, well, just think of the Galileo story. But a few weeks ago we saw a bad side of Science (click here for that post).  We saw Science declaring that evidence and reason and the like showed that All Men Are Not Created Equal—declaring that some are “true men” (to use the language of the time), while others are not; indeed, they might even be a different species from the “true men”.  This was part of what is now often termed “scientific racism”.  It is no longer … Continue reading →

The Sun, Easter, Ash Wednesday, and the Moveable Feasts

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Today I am happy to introduce another guest blogger here at Sacred Space Astronomy: Karen Shadle, Director of Worship for the Archdiocese of Louisville Kentucky.  Long-time readers of this blog may remember a post about Msgr. Bouchet’s telescope and Tim Tomes.  Tomes is now the archivist and historian for the Archdiocese.  He encouraged Shadle to contact me after reading an article on moveable feasts that she had written for her column in The Record, the Archdiocesan newspaper.  This post is adapted from that article.  Karen Shadle is a musicologist with a Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.  She specializes in the history of sacred music in the United States and is an accomplished organist, pianist, and choir director.  She lives in Louisville with her husband and two children. Karen Shadle, 23 Jan 2020 “Alexa, when is Easter?” I asked, pre-stressing for what will be a very busy spring in the Archdiocese of Louisville. “Easter is Sunday, … Continue reading →

Sons of Adam, Daughters of Eve, and Groot

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The 1990s TV show Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (DS9 for short) is a favorite of the Graney family.  DS9 featured lots of those extraterrestrial non-human intelligent life forms so common to Science Fiction: Cardassians, Klingons, Bajorans.  But these extraterrestrials were just humans in make-up.  By this I don’t just mean that the Klingon or Bajoran characters were played by human actors wearing rubber “ears” or “brow ridges”; I mean that these characters were essentially human.  Their cultures might have been different, but they acted like human beings. DS9 did attempt to develop extraterrestrials that were less “human” and more “alien”.  They did this via “The Dominion”, the overwhelmingly powerful kingdom of a race of fluid creatures called “Founders”.  The Founders manufactured two races to serve them: the “Vorta”, who were managers and diplomats; and the “Jem’Hadar”, who were soldiers.  The Jem’Hadar were “hatched out of a vat”, fed intravenously, grew to maturity within days, and lived only a few … Continue reading →

ⓜ Editing the Copernican Revolution

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(ⓜ = members only!) This is a “nerdy” story about some of the real minutia of writing and publishing in the academic world.  I am only going to subject subscribers to Sacred Space Astronomy to it. Writers need editors.  A weakness of blogs like this one is that we writers can just dump on you readers whatever we want.  We do not have an editor who makes sure that what we write makes sense, reads well, etc.  We can ask each other for help, or we can ask others to edit our writing (I often ask my wife to read over my posts), but we can also just drop something on the blog. Editors help.  Some famous editors have passed away in recent months, and their passing is noticed by the literary world (click here or here for examples).  Of course, sometimes editors make changes that writers do not want.  But, since editors usually have the final say, the writers … Continue reading →

Astronomy in Aesop’s Fables

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Among Aesop’s fables are a few with connections to astronomy. The ones featured here are all from the 1916 version of the fables, translated by Vernon Jones with an introduction by G. K. Chesterton. The Moon and Her Mother The Moon once begged her Mother to make her a gown. “How can I?” replied she; “there’s no fitting your figure. At one time you’re a New Moon, and at another you’re a Full Moon; and between whiles you’re neither one nor the other.” The Frogs’ Complaint Against the Sun Once upon a time the Sun was about to take to himself a wife. The Frogs in terror all raised their voices to the skies, and Jupiter, disturbed by the noise, asked them what they were croaking about. They replied, “The Sun is bad enough even while he is single, drying up our marshes with his heat as he does. But what will become of us if he marries and begets … Continue reading →

The Infinite – Faith and Math (re-run)

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This post is a re-run of a post that originally ran in August, 2018. This post is part of a series of posts on Pi, infinity, and other things mathematical. Click here for the series. Why might a person see great intrinsic value in mathematical knowledge? Why might a person be a “math nerd”? Consider this lengthy quotation, from a piece written by Fr. Ron Rolheiser that was published in The Record (the newspaper of the Archdiocese of Louisville, Kentucky) some time ago,* in which Fr. Rolheiser reflects upon the words of a woman who had gone through a profound spiritual experience: What she remembers most and most wants to share with others is this: “I learned that God is very close. We have no idea how close God is to us. God is closer to us than we ever imagine!” Her experience has left her forever branded with a sense of God’s warmth, love, and welcome, but what’s left … Continue reading →

Soaring in Kentucky in 2019

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There were two bald eagles soaring over the Ohio River in Louisville, Kentucky one Saturday this past October.  My wife and I saw them while we were taking a walk on a brisk, fall day.  They were wheeling far overhead in a perfect azure sky.  It was October 12.  The eagles were not soaring over some remote part of the Ohio River—they were on the river where it passes right between the downtowns of Louisville on one side, and Jeffersonville, Indiana on the other.  Below the eagles were bridges, boats, cars, buildings, parks, and lots of people out enjoying the day. The first time I ever saw a bald eagle in the wild was also on the Ohio River.  This was in the early 2000s, when my family was exploring a remote area west of Leavenworth, Indiana.  Then, a few years later, when my college’s observatory was located in Otter Creek Park, on the river well south-east of Louisville, everyone … Continue reading →

Blaise Pascal and his Wager

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Check out Blaise Pascal’s Wager on the Vatican Observatory Faith and Science site (click here for it). If you like math and science it is likely that you have encountered Blaise Pascal (1623-1662).  Perhaps you learned about Pascal’s Principle of hydraulics in a physical science class, or in an engineering technology class where you learned about machines that use hydraulics.  Or maybe you read about his work with measuring atmospheric pressure, and how he found that as he ascended a mountain the pressure he measured grew less and less.  You might have encountered Pascal’s Triangle in a math class. Pascal’s Wager involves matters of faith—sort of.  The Wager is an argument that it is reasonable to seek to believe in God.  “Seek”, because the Wager is directed to the person who neither believes nor is inclined to believe.  The Wager argues that a person risks little, and gains much, by choosing to seek belief in God.  It is all about … Continue reading →