The Vatican Observatory, Castel Gandolfo: 80th Anniversary Celebration

Pictures of the two Stamps for the 80th Anniversary Symposium.- Pope's address at the Papal Audience.- Preface.- Introduction.- Planetary Science.- 1) 108 years of Meteorites at the Vatican Observatory (Robert Macke).- 2) Physical characterization of fast rotator NEOs (Jean-Baptiste Kikwaya Eluo).- Stellar evolution and Stars.- 3) The Enigmatic Lambda Boötis Stars (Chris Corbally).- 4) A New near infrared survey of the inner regions of the Milky Way (Dante Minniti).- 5) Some Recent Investigations in Stellar Evolution at the Specola Vaticana (David Brown).- 6) The Vilnius Photometry System at the Vatican Observatory (Robert Janusz, and Richard Boyle).- Galaxies.- 7) WINGS, a wide field nearby galaxy cluster survey: some results (Alessandro Omizzolo).- 8) The Stellar Haloes of Galaxies (Richard De Souza).- Cosmology.- 9) A String Theory Based f(R)-Gravity with Duality Transformations (Gabriele Gionti).- 10) Creation of Matter in a Noncommutative Universe (Michael Heller).- 11) Testing new physics with polarized light: cosmic bire-fringence (Matteo Galaverni).- Education and Outreach.- 12) Some Rules for interacting with Journalists (Guy Consolamagno).- History of Astronomy.- 13) The Rome historical Cauchoix telescope recovered (Aldo Altamore).- 14) Stellar Populations: The Vatican Meeting in 1957 (Jose Funes).- 15 The Leap Second Debate and the Lessons from Lessons from Timekeeping History (Paul Gabor).- 16) A Short History of the Vatican Observatory (Ileana Chinnici).- Science-Philosophy-Theology.- 17) Some reflections on the Influence and Role of Scientific Thought in the Context of the New Evangelization (G. Tanzella-Nitti).- 18) The philosophy of expertise: the case of Vatican astronomers (Louis Caruana).- 19) Furnishing Creation (Paul Mueller).- Conclusion.

Gabriele Gionti, SJ, has been a member of the staff of the Vatican Observatory since 2010, where he studies quantum gravity and string theory and is in charge of a scientific collaboration with the theoretical division of CERN. Dr. Gionti was awarded a PhD in Mathematical Physics from the International School of Advanced Studies, Trieste, Italy in 1998. He joined the Jesuits in 2000 and in 2004 obtained a BA in Philosophy from the Gregorian University following study at the Aloisianum Philosophical Institute of the Society of Jesus in Padua, Italy. He was subsequently assigned to the Vatican Observatory in Tucson, Arizona and in 2006 moved to Berkeley, California, where he earned an MDiv/STB and an STL from the Jesuit School of Theology at Santa Clara University. He was ordained a Roman Catholic Priest in 2010. Dr. Gionti represents the Vatican Observatory on the Scientific Committee of the International Center for Relativistic Astrophysics (ICRA).

Brother Guy J. Consolmagno, SJ, is Director of the Vatican Observatory and President of the Vatican Observatory Foundation. His particular area of research is asteroids and meteorites. Br. Consolmagno completed an MS in Planetary Science from MIT in 1975 and a PhD in Planetary Science from the University of Arizona in 1978. He took vows as a Jesuit brother in 1991 and was assigned to the Vatican Observatory in 1993. He subsequently held the MacLean Chair for Visiting Jesuit Scholars at St. Joseph's University, Philadelphia; the Loyola Chair at Fordham University, New York; and the Lanigan Chair in Science, Medicine, and Ethics at LeMoyne College, Syracuse. Br. Consolmagno has been a member of the IAU Working Group on Planetary System Nomenclature and the Mars Nomenclature Task Group, and in 2015 became chair of the Mars TG. He is also a past chair of the American Astronomical Society Division for Planetary Sciences. He became a Fellow of the Meteoritical Society in 2008 and in 2014 was awarded the Carl Sagan