Tag Archives: Vatican Observatory

Specola Guestbook: April 27, 1908

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This entry is part of 3 in the series Specola Guestbook

Since its founding in 1891, many people have passed through the doors of the Vatican Observatory.  A quick perusal of our guestbook reveals several Names, including Popes, nobel laureates, astronauts, actors, and saints. Today’s guestbook entry is from April 27, 1908, when Simon Newcomb made a visit. Next to his name Simon Newcomb (1835-1909) wrote, “Professor U.S.N. [United States Navy], Washington D.C.”  He was an astronomer and mathematician who served as the director of the National Almanac Office and later as a professor of mathematics and astronomy at Johns Hopkins University and in the U.S. Navy. Among his astronomical contributions, he was primarily interested in celestial mechanics, planetary motion, and improving navigation.  He published a book on ephemerides, entitled Tables of the Sun, that became the official international standard basis for related astronomical constants.  He corrected a table of lunar positions by incorporating data going back to 1672. He also made a few other contributions. He collaborated with Albert Michelson … Continue reading →

IAU Executive Committee meets at Vatican Observatory

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Written by Fr. Peter Lah, SJ The International Astronomical Union (IAU) executive committee visited the Vatican Observatory (Specola Vaticana) on May 15th, 2019. The 23-member group included the executive committee members (13), division presidents (8) and two general secretariat staff. They held three working sessions on the premises of the Specola, followed by the tour of the permament exhibition in the telescope domes of Villa Barberini. The visit concluded with a dinner where they and their spouses were greeted by members of the Jesuit community. On Monday, May 13, the IAU executive committee met at the Accademia dei Lincei in Rome. Fr. Paul Mueller, the vice director of the Specola, gave a talk on the history of Vatican Observatory’s relationship with the Union. The Accademia dei Lincei is the place of the first IAU General Assembly in 1922, during which meeting the participants also visited the Vatican Observatory in its location in Vatican City. The Eighth IAU General Assembly also … Continue reading →

Specola Guestbook: April 24, 1908

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This entry is part 1 of 3 in the series Specola Guestbook

Since its founding in 1891, many people have passed through the doors of the Vatican Observatory.  A quick perusal of our guestbook reveals several Names, including Popes, nobel laureates, astronauts, actors, and saints. Today’s guestbook entry is from April 24, 1908, when Elis Strömgren made a visit. Next to his name, Svante Elis Strömgren (1870-1947) wrote, “Professor an der Universität, Kopenhagen” (Professor at the University of Copenhagen). He was a noteworthy astronomer who in 1907 became director of the Observatory of Copenhagen.  His area of interest was primarily celestial mechanics, and he computed orbits for several comets.  The asteroid (1422) Stromgrenia is named for him. What makes him particularly notable, however, is not his own contribution but that of his children. Bengt Strömgren (1908-1987) made several significant advances in astrophysics, including the measurement of elemental composition of stars: 70% hydrogen, 27% helium, and the remaining 3% everything else.  I will write more about him in a future post, as he also … Continue reading →

Specola Guestbook: April 9 1907

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This entry is part 2 of 3 in the series Specola Guestbook

Since its founding in 1891, many people have passed through the doors of the Vatican Observatory.  A quick perusal of our guestbook reveals several Names, including Popes, nobel laureates, astronauts, actors, and saints.  This is the first post in a new series that will highlight some of these notable visitors. Today’s guestbook entry is from April 9, 1907.  On that day, H. A. Lorentz signed the book. Hendrik Antoon Lorentz (1853-1928) was a Dutch physicist at the University of Leiden. In his inscription, he wrote “Hoogleeraar aan de Universiteit te Leiden” (Professor at the University of Leiden). He is notable for two significant contributions. (Well, he has a list of significant contributions and various things that bear his name, but two are most significant.) First, he developed a theory to explain the Zeeman effect; i.e. the splitting of spectral lines in the presence of a strong magnetic field.  The splitting is due to the effect of the magnetic field on … Continue reading →

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

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This entry is part 2 of 3 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 →

Religious Scientists – An Introduction

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This entry is part 3 of 3 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 →

In the Meteorite Laboratory: New 3d Printer

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Tucked away in one part of the Vatican Observatory is the meteorite laboratory, where the Vatican meteorite collection of 1200 specimens resides.  The lab specializes in the measurement of physical properties such as density, porosity, magnetic susceptibilty, and heat capacity.  That is where I spend a good deal of my time. In order to do all this research, the lab contains several instruments and miscellaneous apparatus spread across the bench tops.  This include ideal-gas pycnometers, a 3d laser scanner, a liquid nitrogen apparatus for measuring heat capacity, a vacuum chamber, and more. I will probably devote another blog post to describe the research we do with these instruments. Occasionally, the meteorite laboratory acquires a piece of equipment that is a little unusual. One such very recent acquisition is a 3D printer: a Prusa i3 MK3*. For those unfamiliar with the concept of 3D printing, the device extrudes melted plastic through a heated print head, similar to the way a hot-glue … Continue reading →

A Saint, a Telescope, and a Man on the Moon

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Regular readers of The Catholic Astronomer are familiar with this photograph, found at the top of the blog’s home page. But who is the Pope in this photo, and why is he looking through a telescope? It is Pope Paul VI, canonized a saint today along with Archbishop Oscar Romero and four others.  In his time as the Supreme Pontiff, he oversaw the completion of the Second Vatican Council, and he was the first Pope in modern times to travel abroad from the Vatican when addressed the United Nations assembly in New York in 1965. The photo was taken on July 20, 1969 (technically, the morning of July 21 in Italy) at one of the telescope domes of the Vatican Observatory, located at the Pontifical villas in Castel Gandolfo.  The other man in the photo is Fr. Daniel O’Connell SJ,  the director of the Vatican Observatory at that time.  The telescope is a Schmidt with 98-cm primary mirror and a … Continue reading →

Vatican Observatory to Host First Ever Workshop on Meteorite Curation

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(Press Release from the Vatican Observatory) The Vatican Observatory will host the first ever workshop on the Curation of Meteorites and Extraterrestrial Samples at its headquarters in the Papal gardens of Castel Gandolfo.  Held from September 10-13, the meeting will bring together an international group of meteorite and extraterrestrial sample curators to exchange ideas, discuss best practices, and to explore ways to better serve the scientific community. Thirty curators and collections managers will be at this meeting, representing 27 scientific institutions from around the world. These include museums, universities, and institutions throughout Europe, the United States, Canada, Russia, Morocco, and Japan.  The curators not only care for meteorite collections, but also specimens gathered from space missions, such as the NASA Apollo moon rocks and the specimens from the Hayabusa mission to the asteroid 25143 Itokawa. “The community of curators has been trying to organize itself for many years,” says Br. Robert Macke, S.J., the curator of the Vatican meteorite collection … Continue reading →

Please Welcome our new Blogger: Brother Bob Macke SJ

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Br. Bob Macke joined the Vatican Observatory in July 2013, where he studies meteorite physical properties in the observatory’s meteorite laboratory. In August 2014, Br. Bob became the curator of the Vatican collection of 1200 meteorite specimens. Br. Bob is a member of the U.S. Central and Southern Province of the Society of Jesus. He was born in Fort Worth, Texas in 1974. After studying physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Washington University in St. Louis, he taught astronomy for a few years at Bowling Green State University (Bowling Green, Ohio) before entering the Society of Jesus in 2001. As a Jesuit, he studied philosophy at St. Louis University. He then taught physics, astronomy, and mathematics at Rockhurst University (Kansas City, Missouri) for one year, and then began a doctoral program studying meteorite physical properties at University of Central Florida. His dissertation, Survey of Meteorite Physical Properties: Density, Porosity and Magnetic Susceptibility, detailed measurements on more than … Continue reading →

Happy Birthday to the Father of Astrophysics!

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Father Angelo Secchi, sometimes called the Father of Astrophysics, was born 200 years ago on this day (June 28). [Note that many sources get his birthday wrong, thinking it was the 29th. He was born on the 28th, baptized on the 29th, according to his biographer Dr. Ileana Chinnici, who’s seen the documents in question. Also many sources think that he had a first name beginning with a P, often listed as Pietro, because he was often referred to as “P. Angelo Secchi” but in fact the P there stands for Padre, signifying that he was a priest.] Secchi’s work at the Roman College attracted great positive attention the science and the Church at a time when both were under attack… and probably led to the foundation of the Vatican Observatory a few years after his death in 1879. Father Chris Corbally has written a short piece about him which is running in the American Astronomical Society’s This Month in … Continue reading →

From the Tablet: Galilean Entanglements

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This entry is part 155 of 184 in the series Across the Universe

This article first appeared in The Tablet in January, 2016 From a Special Injunction of the Roman Inquisition, 26 February 1616: “At the palace of the usual residence of the said Most Illustrious Lord Cardinal Bellarmine… the Reverend Father Michelangelo Segizzi of Lodi, O.P. and Commissary General of the Holy Office… in the name of His Holiness the Pope and the whole Congregation of the Holy Office, ordered and enjoined the said Galileo, who was himself still present, to abandon completely the above-mentioned opinion that the sun stands still at the center of the world and the earth moves, and henceforth not to hold, teach, or defend it in any way whatever… The same Galileo acquiesced in this injunction and promised to obey.” The year 2016 marked three hundred years since Galileo’s first trial. But concerns about Church and science exist today. At a recent dinner where I was speaking for the Vatican Observatory Foundation, the wife of a wealthy … Continue reading →