Centuries of stargazing leave names of Jesuits written in the sky
Centuries after the Holy See silenced Roman Catholic stargazers for questioning Earth’s centrality in the cosmos, Jesuit astronomers at the Vatican’s internal observatory are increasingly writing their names in the heavens.
The Vatican, run by Pope Francis, the first Jesuit pope in history, recently announced that three more Jesuit scientists from the Jesuit-run observatory have named asteroids after them as part of a new batch that includes the 16th-century pope who ordered the Gregorian calendar and a Tuscan pastry chef whose hobby is the firmament.
Jesuits, though not yet as numerous as the stars, have had over 30 asteroids assigned to them since the space rocks were formally named in 1801. That “shouldn’t be surprising given the often scientific nature of this community,” said astronomer Don Yeomans, who worked at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. ., and is now part of the group that gives official approval to the names given to asteroids.
The three astral Jesuits named last month are Reverend Robert Janusz, a Polish priest and physicist who focuses on measurements of light from star clusters (565184 Janusz); Reverend William R. Stoeger (1943-2014), an American priest (551878 Stoeger); and the Reverend Johann Georg Hagen (1847-1930), an Austrian-American who, according to the naming for 562971 Johannhagen, “devised several ingenious experiments in the Vatican to demonstrate the rotation of the Earth, thereby extending the theories of Copernicus and Galileo directly confirmed.”
All three work or worked in the Specola Vaticana, or Vatican Observatory, near the Papal Gardens of Castel Gandolfo, a short drive from Rome. The observatory is a descendant of centuries of Vatican-sponsored research into the stars, and it is the only Vatican body conducting scientific study.
Staffed by Jesuits since the 1930s, the history of the observatory is a refutation of the idea that the Roman Catholic Church has always sought to hinder scientific progress, an idea perpetuated by high-profile cases such as that of Galileo and Giordano Bruno at the hands of the Inquisition during the Renaissance.
“There are institutions like the Pontifical Academy of Sciences that tell the Vatican what is going on in the world of science, but we do the science,” Brother said. Guy Consolmagnoan asteroid honoree (4597 Consolmagno) and director of the observatory, whose tagline on the website is “faith-inspiring science.” In a 2017 interview with The New York Times, Brother Consolmagno said part of the observatory’s mission was “to show the world that the Church supports science.”
Significantly, a former director of the observatory, the Jesuit astrophysicist Rev. George V. Coyne, who died in 2020, was instrumental in getting the Vatican to change its position and formally recognize in 1992 that Galileo may have been right.
“One thing the Bible is not,” Father Coyne told The New York Times Magazine in 1994, “is a science textbook. Scripture consists of myth, poetry, history. But it’s just not teaching science.”
The Specola’s roots date back to Pope Gregory XIII, who built an observatory — known as the Tower of the Winds — in the Vatican so astronomers could study the reform of the Julian calendar, which was in use until 1582. Gregory, also known as Ugo Boncompagni (1502-1585), was an important early patron of the Jesuits and now has an asteroid named after him, 560794 Ugoboncompagni.
Among the astronomers who worked on the reformed calendar was a Jesuit, Christopher Clavius (1538-1612) — asteroid 20237 Clavius — who attended Roman College, a school in the Italian capital founded in 1551 by St. Ignatius Loyola, the founder of the order.
The Roman College educated generations of astronomers, including Giovanni Battista Riccioli (1598-1671) – asteroid 122632 Riccioli – who published a map of the moon in 1647 and codified part of the lunar nomenclature that is still in use today. When Neil Armstrong said, “Houston, Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed,” during the Apollo 11 lunar mission in 1969, “Tranquillity” was a reference to the Mare Tranquillitatis, or Sea of Tranquillity, that Riccioli had mentioned.
Asteroid 4705 Secchi is named after Jesuit priest Angelo Secchi (1818-1878), who pioneered astronomical spectroscopy and served as director of the observatory at Roman College from 1848 until his death.
Current astronomers at the Vatican Observatory usually divide their time between Castel Gandolfo and Mount Graham, Ariz., where the Vatican operates a telescope in collaboration with the University of Arizona.
Rev. Jean-Baptiste Kikwaya Eluo, who works at the observatory, said that being a scientist and a man of faith changes the way one perceives the world. He said his scientific vocation had been nurtured by his superiors in the Jesuit order. (He also has an asteroid named after him: 23443 Kikwaya.)
As Jesuits, “because we really believe that God is the one who put everything there, it puts us in a very different relationship to what we perceive,” Father Kikwaya said in a Zoom call from Arizona.
The naming of asteroids – also called minor planets or small solar system bodies – is controlled by a group of professional astronomers, part of the International Astronomical Union. The group gets a list of suggested names and citations each month, but not all asteroids are labeled; only about 3.8 percent of the 620,000 numbered asteroids have been named. specific guidelines.
Traditionally, names favored mythological figures from Greece or Rome (the first four were named Ceres, Pallas, Juno and Vesta), but later inspiration was drawn from other cultures. Ryugufor example, is a magical underwater palace in Japanese folklore, while Bennu is named after an ancient Egyptian bird god (selected from thousands of entries in a “Name that asteroid!” contest). There is also Apophiswho in Egyptian mythology is the enemy of the sun god Ra.
Over the decades, more prosaic attributions emerged, usually to scientists, astronomers, or high-profile figures. In recent years, asteroid names have also been inspired by the winners and top participants of high school science and engineering fairs. (New York Times science writer Carl Zimmer also has an asteroid: 212073 Carlzimmer.)
There are restrictions. “Pet names are discouraged,” the guidelines note, and historical figures associated with “slave trade, genocide, or eugenics” are not acceptable. There is also a restriction for military and political figures – they must have died at least 100 years ago to be eligible.
However, the opening of the trial has raised questions about assigning asteroid names to students whose futures are still unexplored.
Take the case of Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who did an asteroid named after her (23238 Ocasio-Cortez) won a prize at an international science and engineering fair after her high school project. “It’s true,” she wrote on Twitter in 2018.
Despite Ms. Ocasio-Cortez’s later career, the asteroid will keep her name; there is no retroactive recovery. “We don’t,” said Gareth Williams, secretary of the naming group, called the Working Group on Small Body Nomenclature.
The group also tends to “strongly discourage” naming asteroids after religious figures, said Dr. Williams. But the current crop of Jesuit astronomers “were not named because they were Jesuits, they were named because they were astronomers. They happened to be Jesuits,” Dr. Williams observed.
Many of the names of asteroids have a story attached to them. In the latest batch, asteroid 44715 was named Paolovezzosi after Paolo Vezzosi, an amateur astronomer and pastry chef from the Italian town of Montelupo Fiorentino, in Tuscany. Mr. Vezzosi, according to the quote, “makes delicious cakes”, at outreach events.
He was nominated by Maura Tombelli, president of an astronomy group that is a public observatory in Montelupo Fiorentino. Ms. Tombelli has discovered 200 asteroids during her decades of stargazing (asteroid 9904 is named Mauratombelli in her honor).
Nominating Mr Vezzosi was a way of thanking him for helping to get the observatory off the ground, Ms Tombelli explained.
“We had nothing else to give, just my bricks in the air,” she said.