Category Archives: Science

Religious Scientists: Fr. Angelo Secchi S.J. (1818-1878), Pioneer of Astrophysics

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This entry is part of 2 in the series Religious Scientists of the Catholic Church

(This is the first article in the column “Religious Scientists of the Catholic Church” which looks at the lives and contributions of prominent vowed religious scientists.) The year 2018 marked the 200th anniversary of the birth of Fr. Angelo Secchi SJ, and so there have already been several articles on Fr. Secchi in this blog.  An interested reader could review any of these articles: “Ghost of elements, spectres of the universe: Angelo Secchi SJ” by Michelle Francl, Aug 8, 2018. “Solar Prominences and a Prominent Jesuit Astronomer” by Robert Macke, Oct 23, 2018. “Happy Birthday to the Father of Astrophysics!” by Guy Consolmagno, June 28, 2018. And outside the blog, here’s another article I wrote about Secchi’s oceanographic studies: “Fr. Angelo Secchi, S.J. and the Voyage of the Immacolata Concezione” by Robert Macke, International Society of Limnology webpage For the YouTube generation, here is a video to watch: Why begin this series with a scientist for whom so much has already … Continue reading →

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 →

Particle Plumes Discovered Erupting from Asteroid Bennu’s Surface

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A NASA spacecraft that will return a sample of a near-Earth asteroid named Bennu to Earth in 2023 made the first-ever close-up observations of particle plumes erupting from an asteroid’s surface. Bennu also revealed itself to be more rugged than expected, challenging the mission team to alter its flight and sample collection plans, due to the rough terrain. Bennu is the target of NASA’s Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security-Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS-REx) mission, which began orbiting the asteroid on Dec. 31. Bennu, which is only slightly wider than the height of the Empire State Building, may contain unaltered material from the very beginning of our solar system. “The discovery of plumes is one of the biggest surprises of my scientific career,” said Dante Lauretta, OSIRIS-REx principal investigator at the University of Arizona, Tucson. “And the rugged terrain went against all of our predictions. Bennu is already surprising us, and our exciting journey there is just getting started.” Shortly after the discovery of … 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 →

What Scientists Found After Sifting Through Dust in the Solar System

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Just as dust gathers in corners and along bookshelves in our homes, dust piles up in space too. But when the dust settles in the solar system, it’s often in rings. Several dust rings circle the Sun. The rings trace the orbits of planets, whose gravity tugs dust into place around the Sun, as it drifts by on its way to the center of the solar system. The dust consists of crushed-up remains from the formation of the solar system, some 4.6 billion years ago — rubble from asteroid collisions or crumbs from blazing comets. Dust is dispersed throughout the entire solar system, but it collects at grainy rings overlying the orbits of Earth and Venus, rings that can be seen with telescopes on Earth. By studying this dust — what it’s made of, where it comes from, and how it moves through space — scientists seek clues to understanding the birth of planets and the composition of all that … Continue reading →

Religious Scientists – An Introduction

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This entry is part 1 of 2 in the series Religious Scientists of the Catholic Church

As this is a new column for the blog, it might be appropriate to begin with a small introduction. In the motu proprio “Ut Mysticam”—the document establishing the Vatican Observatory in 1891—Pope Leo XIII wrote that the reason for creating such an institution in the Vatican was “…that everyone might see clearly that the Church and her Pastors are not opposed to true and solid science, whether human or divine, but that they embrace it, encourage it, and promote it with the fullest possible dedication.” Primarily, the Vatican Observatory addresses this mission through its scientific endeavors. We are all vowed religious members of the Catholic Church who are respected scientists making valuable contributions in our fields. Through this we are a sign to the world of the compatibility of faith and science through the example of our own lives. It would be a mistake to think that the Vatican Observatory serves as the only such example of science performed in … Continue reading →

Ladyzhenskaya’s Icon

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On March 7 the “Google Doodle” featured mathematician Olga Ladyzhenskaya.  If you clicked on the “doodle” you probably saw something like the Wikipedia entry that showed up at the top corner of the screen: Olga Aleksandrovna Ladyzhenskaya was a Russian mathematician. She was known for her work on partial differential equations and fluid dynamics. She provided the first rigorous proofs of the convergence of a finite difference method for the Navier–Stokes equations. I wanted to find out a little more about this person, and in searching around I came upon a 10-year-old blog post from Mihai Caragiu, Professor of Mathematics at Ohio Northern University, who noted a “photograph of a 79 years old Ladyzhenskaya in her apartment in St. Petersburg featuring an icon of the Most Holy Theotokos [Mother of God]”.  I could not really tell for sure that the woman in the picture was Ladyzhenskaya, and there was not additional information, but a little more searching quickly turned up … Continue reading →

Opportunity Mars Rover Mission Ends

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The historic Opportunity Mars rover mission has come to an end. Opportunity last communicated with Earth on June 10, 2018 after a planet-wide dust storm covered the rover’s solar panels, denying power to the rover. After 800+ attempts to contact @MarsRovers Opportunity, today we’re announcing the end of a successful Martian mission. Intended to explore the Red Planet for 90 days, Oppy outlived its mission lifetime by 14+ years. Join us live now: https://t.co/zJwTTpQNwp #ThanksOppy pic.twitter.com/U4J26TfzDv — Jim Bridenstine (@JimBridenstine) February 13, 2019 Opportunity had a twin: the Spirit rover; their mission was to search of answers about the history of water on Mars – and boy did they find some interesting things! This video is a fantastic (and short) retrospective of the Spirit and Opportunity rover missions: Spirit and Opportunity landed on Mars in 2004 – in quite spectacular fashion! Spirit and Opportunity were designed for a 90-day mission; Opportunity lasted for over 14 years! I don’t want to … 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 →

Hunting for Saffordites East of Mt. Graham and the Vatican Telescope. pt. 2

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This entry is part of 2 in the series Hunting for Saffordites

In my previous post, I discussed tektites – a byproduct of asteroid impacts, and obsidian, which can sometimes look like tektites. Finally, to my trips to the location of the Saffordites. The area where I have hunted is east of Mt Graham and southeast of the city of Safford in southeast Arizona, several hours east of Tucson. It is a fairly flat area and the known area where Saffordites have been found covers many square miles, maybe tens or hundreds of square miles. Since these are many million-year-old weathered volcanic rocks, they may have been transported to their present location, so their source is unknown. As it turns out, this location is on my way to observing at the Vatican Advanced Technology Telescope on 10,000-foot Mt. Graham, but that is another story. Above are three pictures taken just before we started looking for Saffordites. On the left is me with Twink Monrad, a closeup of snow on Mt. Graham, and a view of one … Continue reading →

Hunting for Saffordites East of Mt. Graham and the Vatican Telescope. pt. 1

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This entry is part 1 of 2 in the series Hunting for Saffordites

As a planetary astronomer who has had a long career studying small bodies in the Solar System— from the dwarf planets to asteroids to moons to the rings of Saturn—I have always had an interest in meteorites, rocks from space. I have been fortunate enough to have hunted for meteorites about six times, but unfortunately have never found any. Maybe someday…. However, I have hunted more successfully for other unusual rocks. First, here is a little background. A rock in space that orbits the Sun and is smaller than a planet or dwarf planet is called an asteroid. If it is smaller than about a meter (a little over a yard) in diameter, it is called a meteoroid. If the object looks fuzzy when viewed through a telescope, it is called a comet. Once in a while, one of these runs into the Earth. As it passes through Earth’s atmosphere, the light that we see is called a meteor or, … Continue reading →

Across the Universe: Stardust messages

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This entry is part 15 of 178 in the series Across the Universe

First published in The Tablet in January, 2006; we ran it here in 2015. Thirty [now more than 40!] years ago, when I was a doctoral student at the University of Arizona, our campus in Tucson lay beneath the landing path of the Davis-Monthan Air Force Base and every few minutes our planetary science classes would be interrupted by the roar of a jet fighter. But an occasional plane would cross overhead with a different sound… an odd, almost quiet whine. Looking up you’d see the large black cruciform, long straight wings and a thin fuselage, of a U-2 spy plane. For twenty years they’d flown photography missions over Soviet Russia and other cold war hotspots. But one U-2 was different. Rather than spooky black, it was painted pure white. And instead of air force emblems, it flew NASA insignia. A visitor to our Lunar and Planetary Laboratory, Don Brownlee from the University of Washington, explained those flights to us. … Continue reading →