Credits: X-ray: NASA/CXC/PSU/L.Townsley et al; Optical: UKIRT; Infrared: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Greetings!
It’s a new year, time to enjoy what we’ve accomplished and to look forward to what we have on tap for the upcoming year! 
The biggest effort of 2018 was bringing our web sites, including The Catholic Astronomer and the Faith and Science Library, to maturity. 
 
We’re adding new (free) subscribers to the Catholic Astronomer at the rate of about a hundred a month; it would be great to reach 10,000 by the end of 2019! If you haven’t signed up yet to get notification of each new article, why not do that now? Did I mention, it’s free? Of course, we are able to support this web site only by the support of our Sacred Space subscribers, which is available at the cost of a couple of coffees a month. If you can join that group as well, you can insure that we have even more new articles about astronomy, the sky, and how that reflects our lives and faith here on Earth.
 
The Faith and Science library is now up and running with nearly 500 articles and videos that have been vetted, and formatted, for use by Catholic educators and educated Catholics… and anyone else interested in the scholarship that exists on the topic of Faith and Science. If you teach a course on this topic, or know anyone who does, be sure to send them the link and tell them to check out the material we have available. Again, this material is free… which means, we need your donations and Sacred Space support to keep it going.
 
This January we’re holding our biennial Faith and Astronomy Workshop in the dark desert outside of Tucson, where 25 Catholic educators will meet and brainstorm about astronomy and how we can bring the wonders of the heavens into our parishes and classrooms. We’re planning to hold our annual Astronomy Seminar in early June in Washington DC; watch this space. And Br. Guy will be giving talks through 2019 in places ranging from Oklahoma to New Zealand; if you’re on our mailing list you will be notified when he comes to your town (so you are forewarned!) And that’s just what’s on the calendar so far. 
 
Oh, and have we mentioned the results about to come in from half a dozen spacecraft, the comets known and as yet unknown that will be overhead in 2019?
 
Thanks for being a part of our exploration and enjoyment of this wonderful Creation!
2019 VOF Astro-Photo Calendars Available!
2019 Faith and Astronomy Workshop
A four-day workshop, sponsored by the VOF, designed to bring those working in Catholic parishes and schools an up-to-date overview of the universe, as seen through the eyes of the Jesuit priests and brothers who work at the Vatican’s own astronomical observatory.
Br. Bob Macke Experiments with 3D Printing
Br. Bob Macke has been experimenting with a new 3D printer for use in the Vatican Observatory's meteorite lab; he has made 3D replicas of laser-scans of meteorites, and custom-made display mounts for meteorites.
Popular Posts on the Catholic Astronomer Blog
Christopher M. Graney - Dec. 8

Would you consider a group of nineteenth-century Belgian immigrant stonemasons, building Catholic churches and other structures in a sparsely populated area of Indiana, to be scientists? (This post is part of a collection of posts on the subject of who can do science— click here  for the whole series.) I say you might. This post-of-many-pictures is about them and the remarkable legacy that they created...
Bob Trembley - Dec. 24

Christmas Eve 2018 marks the 50 th  anniversary of the  Apollo 8  mission, which put humans into orbit around the Moon for the first time. From lunar orbit, an image of the Earth rising over the limb of the Moon was taken; " Earthrise " went on to become one of the most influential photographs of the space age, gracing the cover of TIME Magazine, and a U.S. postage stamp.
Vatican Observatory and
Vatican Observatory Foundation - In the News !
VOF Outreach Calendar
Jan. 14-18, 2019: Faith and Astronomy Workshop. More Info Here: [Link]
Feb. 10, 2019: Talk at Harvard Catholics - Br. Guy.
Feb. 11, 2019: Faith and Science - U of Pennsylvania - Br. Guy.
Feb. 20, 2019: Talk at St. Thomas More Parish - Br. Guy.
Browse the VOF Websites!
Take a look at the resources we've gathered on our Faith and Science website - hundreds of articles, videos, and audio files!
Read our Blog - we have several authors writing about a wide range of faith and science related topics.
Space Science News
For the second time in history, a human-made object has reached the space between the stars. NASA's Voyager 2  probe now has exited the heliosphere - the protective bubble of particles and magnetic fields created by the Sun.
The InSight lander has deployed a seismometer on the surface of Mars. This was the first time a spacecraft has robotically placed a seismometer onto the surface of another planet. 
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