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Asteroids Named for Jesuits: An Update
Two years ago, I wrote my first blog entry, entitled “Asteroids Named for Jesuits.” It’s time for an update. What prompts this update is the news that the Vatican Observatory’s own Fr. Christopher Corbally has been honored with the naming of asteroid 119248 Corbally. There are now six asteroids named for members of the Vatican Observatory. For those who don’t know him, Fr. Corbally is a member of the English Jesuit province. He joined the Vatican Observatory in 1983, and has played an important role in the research activities of our Tucson half of the Observatory. His astronomical studies include multiple star systems, spectral classification of stars, 𝜆-Boötis stars, and more. He has also studied human sentience in an evolutionary context, recently co-authoring a book on the subject: The Emergence of Religion in Human Evolution. He has served as vice director of the Vatican Observatory Research Group in Tucson. He is president of National Committee for Astronomy in the Vatican … Continue reading →
Dr. Vera Rubin
I asked fellow Vatican astronomer Fr Chris Corbally to write a few words about his friend and colleague, Dr. Vera Rubin: Dr. Vera Rubin died on Sunday, Christmas Day, in Princeton, N.J. She was 88. Vera had been a longtime staff astronomer at the Carnegie Institution of Washington, was married to Dr. Robert J. Rubin, a mathematician and chemist who predeceased her, and they had four children, all of whom became doctoral level scientists. These facts appear simple, but what a remarkable and delightful person Vera was, especially for us at the Vatican Observatory! Though I had met her in passing at meetings of the American Astronomical Society, I came to know her and her husband Bob during the first Vatican Observatory Summer School in 1986. The “VOSS” was the brainchild of Father Martin McCarthy, a staff member of the Vatican Observatory from 1958 to 1999, and it was initiated with the help of the then director, Father George Coyne. … Continue reading →