Category Archives: And Then I Wrote

ⓜ Space for all of us

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This entry is part 3 of 14 in the series And Then I Wrote

And then I wrote… This one dates from the International Year of Astronomy. It was published in the Times (of London) Higher Education Supplement on June 25, 2009. One of the odd side-effects of being an astronomer at the Vatican Observatory is that we often get elected to various positions in professional astronomical societies. It may be the special respect that our fellow scientists have for the Vatican; or, more likely, the fact that we don’t have to spend a large part of our days writing grant proposals (in competition with everyone else) to fund our research means that, unlike most astronomers, we have the free time to spend on these important but time-consuming offices. Whatever the reason, it has meant that for the past few years I have been watching the buildup to the IYA – the International Year of Astronomy – from the vantage point as a past president of Commission 16 (Moons and Planets) of the International … Continue reading →

ⓜ Turn right at Orion?

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This entry is part 4 of 14 in the series And Then I Wrote

(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…  This was one of my favorite book reviews… I got to be snarky and still give the book an enthusiastic thumb’s up! The review ran in the journal Meteoritics and Planetary Sciences in 2001. Turn Right at Orion: Travels Through the Cosmos by Mitchell Begelman. Perseus Publishing/Helix Books, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA, 2000, 264 pp. I have to admit, I had every reason to hate this book before I even cracked open a page. As the co-author myself of a bestselling astronomy book called Turn LEFT at Orion (published more than ten years ago by Cambridge University Press, with a new edition just out), I obviously have my own opinion about how to find one’s way around the galaxy! And the plot device of this book, … Continue reading →

ⓜ An Elder View of the Solar System

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This entry is part 5 of 14 in the series And Then I Wrote

(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…  A well-known secret of book reviews is that reviews of bad books are lots more fun to write, and read. On the other hand, having been an author myself, I feel bad about scoring points off someone who’s not around to defend themselves. Every book represents a year of some poor author’s life, and it is just as much hard work to write a bad book as a good one. Well, this one was a doozie. It was also the first book I was ever sent to review, dating from back when I still worked as a professor at Lafayette College, before I joined the Jesuits. My anger was more directed at the major publisher who allowed it to be printed; the author was certainly … Continue reading →

ⓜ The Observer’s Guide to Astronomy

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This entry is part 6 of 14 in the series And Then I Wrote

(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…  Keeping up my pattern this month of book reviews, I include here a review of a The Observer’s Guide to Astronomy, Volume I. edited by Patrick Martinez in the late 1980s; translated by Storm Dunlop into English in 1994. My review ran in Icarus volume 117, pp. 216–217, in 1995. So why bother reading about a book that is now more than thirty years old? As I argue at the end of the review, “This book, written for the amateur today, may find its greatest long-term professional importance in the future as a lucid and detailed record of how astronomy used to be done, way back in the 20th century.” It also shows my typical style of book reviewing. All book reviews are personal opinions; and so I am not … Continue reading →

ⓜ A History of Asteroids

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This entry is part 7 of 14 in the series And Then I Wrote

(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…  One of the pleasures of the time I get to spend in Tucson is meeting up once a week for lunch with a bunch of fellow asteroid scientists… these gatherings of “Asteroid Lunch” go back to my graduate student days; they were already happening when I arrived in 1975, so they are now more than 45 years old! This winter, a historian of planetary sciences, Cliff Cunningham, started showing up. And as soon as I saw him, I wanted to hide… because I recalled writing for Sky and Telescope a really negative review of a history of asteroids book many years earlier, and I was afraid it was his book; and if he ever found out… Well, after a couple of weeks like this, I … Continue reading →

ⓜ Seeing versus understanding

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This entry is part 8 of 14 in the series And Then I Wrote

(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…  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 … Continue reading →

ⓜ How did I get here?

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This entry is part 15 of 14 in the series And Then I Wrote

(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…  In 2008, the magazine US Catholic invited a number of writers to submit their choices for modern “spiritual classics”. Here was my choice… Spiritual classics are inspirational works, tested by time, designed to bring one closer to God. Chesterton and Newman come to mind. I have works on my shelf from modern religious writers, from Peter Kreeft to Anne Lamott, who manage to inspire me — when I am not furiously disagreeing with them. But my soul’s deepest stirring comes from a source neither literary nor overtly religious… [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 →

ⓜ The Mad Scientist

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This entry is part 9 of 14 in the series And Then I Wrote

(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…  In 2006-2007 I took a sabbatical year at Fordham University; where others take sabbaticals to get away from teaching and do research, my idea was to get a break from research and do some teaching! While there, I was invited to write a short article to introduce myself to the Fordham community. Here’s what I gave them: I fell into the scientific life by accident. I chose to attend MIT as much for its science fiction collection as anything else: the career of a mad scientist looked like fun! Once there… [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 →

ⓜ The Impact of a Giant

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This entry is part 10 of 14 in the series And Then I Wrote

(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…  In 2005 I was honored to be one of three scientists invited to contribute to a lengthy obituary for a great scientist whom I once worked for, Al Cameron. We had some fun with it, simply because Al was such an amazing (and talented) guy. To name just three now-commonplace ideas that he was responsible for: 1. He was a pioneer in the theoretical calculation of how elements are made in stars, a field now called “nucleosynthesis” 2. He applied his “s-process” nucleosynthesis theories to elements found in both stars and meteorites, and thus based on a combination data from the spectra of stars and the composition of primitive meteorites recalculated our estimate of the abundances of the elements in the universe. 3. He worked … Continue reading →

ⓜ The godless delusion

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This entry is part 12 of 14 in the series And Then I Wrote

(And Then I Wrote…) Since this site began more than six years ago, every Thursday I have been publishing a reprint from my column “Across the Universe” in the British Catholic journal, The Tablet. I have finally gone through all of them (except for 2019’s columns) and I’ve even re-published a few of the oldest ones that came out here before our readership had grown.  In order to let my backlog build up a bit, I am taking “Across the Universe” offline for 2020. Instead, I am republishing a selection of other articles that I have written an published in various places… often obscure. Remember the “New Atheism”? It was all the rage around 2006 and 2007. At that time, the magazine US Catholic invited me to write my response to people like Dawkins and Hitchens. Here’s what I sent them. It ran in their November, 2008, issue. Last fall [2008], I confess, I was in the habit of looking … Continue reading →

ⓜ By Design (Interview, and response)

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This entry is part 13 of 14 in the series And Then I Wrote

(And Then I Wrote…) Since this site began more than six years ago, every Thursday I have been publishing a reprint from my column “Across the Universe” in the British Catholic journal, The Tablet. I have finally gone through all of them (except for 2019’s columns) and I’ve even re-published a few of the oldest ones that came out here before our readership had grown.  In order to let my backlog build up a bit, I am taking “Across the Universe” offline for 2020. Instead, I am republishing a selection of other articles that I have written an published in various places… often obscure.   Interview and Response: At an early Astrobiology conference (in 2005), the NASA online magazine Astrobiology did an interview of me; here’s what they ran: (Click Here for the version on their site) After this ran, someone wrote to me challenging me on a few of my points and wanting to know just what it was … Continue reading →

ⓜ Pronouncing the Names of the Moons of Saturn…

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This entry is part 17 of 14 in the series And Then I Wrote

…or, Pulling Teeth from Tethys (And Then I Wrote…) Since this site began more than six years ago, every Thursday I have been publishing a reprint from my column “Across the Universe” in the British Catholic journal, The Tablet. I have finally gone through all of them (except for 2019’s columns) and I’ve even re-published a few of the oldest ones that came out here before our readership had grown.  In order to let my backlog build up a bit, I am taking “Across the Universe” offline for 2020. Instead, I am republishing a selection of other articles that I have written an published in various places… often obscure. Here’s an offprint of a paper I first published in the AGU newspaper EOS back in 1982, on a topic that is still current. At the time, I was a postdoc at MIT working on computer models of the moons of Saturn, which were just coming up in conversation for the … Continue reading →