I recently aired a Special report on the Vatican Observatory in the interview segment of my weekend radio show, Vatican Insider. I keep up with news about the Vatican specola because of my many visits there, including full days spent at the observatory in the Apostolic Palace of Castelgandolfo covering the summer schools offered for students of astronomy. The specola offices, classrooms and museum are no longer in the palace but on the ground of of the apostolic territory. I was thus interested when I saw this story today on Vatican News.
SEARCHING FOR NEW WORLDS USING VATICAN TELESCOPE
Vatican Observatory Foundation announced that astronomers from the Leibniz-Institute for Astrophysics Potsdam (AIP) and the Vatican Observatory (VO) teamed up to spectroscopically survey more than 1000 bright stars which are suspected to host their own exoplanets.
According to a Vatican Observatory statement, the team – which includes VO astronomers Fr. Paul Gabor, S.J., Fr. David Brown, S.J., and Fr. Chris Corbally, S.J., and VO engineer Michael Franz – now presents precise values of 54 spectroscopic parameters per star in the first of a series of papers in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics and releases all its data to the scientific community.
This unprecedented large number of parameters will be essential to interpreting the stellar light and finding connections between the properties of stars and their possible planets.
Pope Paul VI watching moon landing
Stars, the statement explained, tell stories about themselves, and sometimes about their undiscovered planets. Their language is light. Starlight reveals many physical properties of a star, such as its temperature, pressure, motion, chemical composition, and more. Researchers analyze the light with a method called quantitative absorption spectroscopy. Searching for new worlds using Vatican telescope – Vatican News
WORLD DAY OF MIGRANTS AND REFUGEES TO FOCUS ON RIGHT TO STAY
The Vatican Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development announces the theme of this year’s World Day of Migrants and Refugees focused on the right to choose migration as an option for livelihood and personal development.Pope Francis has chosen “Free to choose whether to migrate or to stay” as the theme for the 109th World Day of Migrants and Refugees, to be celebrated on 24 September.
The Day is observed every year on the last Sunday of September as an occasion to express support and concern for people who are forced to flee their homes, to encourage Catholics worldwide to remember and pray for those displaced by conflict and persecution, and increase awareness about the opportunities that migration offers. It was first celebrated in 1914. World Day of Migrants and Refugees to focus on right to stay – Vatican News
HOLY SEE DRAWS ATTENTION TO PEOPLE FACING RELIGIOUS PERSECUTION
Addressing the 52nd session of the Human Rights Council in Geneva, Archbishop Fortunatus Nwachukwu, Secretary of the Dicastery for Evangelisation, stressed the desire of the Holy See to bring to the attention of this Council “the plight of many individuals and communities who endure persecution because of their religious beliefs.”
The Archbishop, in reiterating Pope Francis’ words, noted that peace also calls for the universal recognition of religious freedom. It is troubling that people are being persecuted simply because they publicly profess their faith, he said, noting that in many countries religious freedom is limited. “About a third of the world’s population lives under these conditions.” Holy See draws attention to people facing religious persecution – Vatican News
Joan's Rome 