Post by Chicago Astronomer - Astro Joe on Nov 17, 2011 13:04:51 GMT -6
Vatican Astronomer George Coyne SJ and the Chicago Astronomer
16 November 2011
16 November 2011
George Coyne SJ presented a very nice lecture on the Vatican Observatories - from the start in the 1500s to the present...
In the south wall of the "Tower of the Winds", where it was more a meteorological station than astronomical - measuring the strong winds over the Italian peninsula - and some times bringing the African sands over the city from the south - is a small hole in a fresco and in a Cherub and a circle on the floor with a line intersecting it.
This was an early Solstice/time measurement tool.
Beam high on the circle in the winter and low in the summer and directly in the middle on the Equinoxes.
But, the calendar of the day was off in keeping with the celestial/solar event...by about 10 days. Prompting Pope Greg to develop a new calendar - and the one used today. This also brought an interest in creating an actual Vatican Observatory..
Several were built at various locations in Rome, some right off the Vatican itself and at the Pope's vacation retreat...
But, as the population grew, it also encroached on the observatories, bringing the ever dreaded light pollution. And the actual solid useful research-grade life of any new telescope, (taking into account obsolete technology and environment), is about 40 years.
Looking for new high ground, the University of Arizona offered to bring the Vatican to the states at one of the world's best sites for astronomical observation at Tucson...where about 20 Telescopes now operate on top of a mountain thousands of feet above the muck of humanity...
Coyne then eased into cosmology, starting with the vast collection and work of Br. Guy Consolmagno on meteorites - studying the gases within the rocks - and finding out that the air on some is quite similar to that of the Martian atmosphere - and pretty sure that they came from the planet.
Which brought us to the age of the Universe....
As he stated....no one knows what 14 billion years, the estimated age of the Universe, is like. So he condensed the age into a single Earth year. And we are at the very last few seconds of an entire year and only been actively studying for just a single second. To think that we know the answers in a single second is preposterous and we should give him more time...
Elemental stellar formation explanations were next...
The mass of the stars determined what would be created with it's death - lighter elements like helium and Oxygen to the massive stars that formed carbon and Iron.
Was it by chance or necessity that one atom met another atom and formed hydrogen? These atoms met trillions of times before, but conditions were not present for them to do anything. It was not hot enough nor pressure high enough to bind into the lighter elements until conditions were just right to lay the foundations leading up to the most complicated machine we know - the human brain...
Evolution was discussed, as a chain of events leading to present day perception of the Universe. Was it by chance or necessity? Somethings were forced to occur like the progression of the periodic table of elements and chance...who knows?
As Coyne explained, we have been studying the Universe and origins for such a brief time and our ability to perceive limited...that we may never know about the true Universe or God.
I enjoyed George Coyne's presentation, in that religion did not play any part in the explanations and as a scientist, he has an open mind about it all.
I approve... #Thumbsup#
