Kentucky Science Conversations: An Astronomer Encounters the Church through Astronomical Journey

We have a visitor author this week, Professor Gerard Williger, an astronomer within the Department of Physics and Astronomy on the University of Louisville (Kentucky), whose work has included the research of quasars, as you will note.

The picture above is an artist’s conception that depicts a distant galaxy with an energetic quasar at its heart. A area in regards to the dimension of the photo voltaic system, powered by a supermassive black gap, pours out 100 to 1,000 instances as a lot gentle as a whole galaxy containing 100 billion stars, producing a glow that outshines its host galaxy and all the things in it. Radiation strain from the neighborhood of the black gap pushes materials away from the galaxy’s heart. The “quasar winds” propel lots of of photo voltaic lots of fabric outward into the galaxy disk every year. This impacts the complete galaxy as the fabric snowplows into surrounding fuel and dirt. Click here for more about quasars from NASA. Image Credit: NASA, ESA and J. Olmsted (STScI)

Click right here for different “Kentucky Science Conversations“ posts. This publish additionally appeared in The Record, the newspaper of the Archdiocese of Louisville, Kentucky) as a “Science in the Bluegrass“ column.

When I used to be little, I all the time requested, “Why?”. I by no means grew out of that, which led me to grow to be a scientist — an expert astronomer. That has concerned extra journey, and extra Catholic connections, than I ever anticipated. Along the best way, I’ve realized that the Big Questions in astronomy are sometimes much like the Big Questions in religion, like “Where did we come from?” or “How did we get here?”

Walsh Jesuit High School close to Akron, Ohio led me to dive deeply into the Big Questions. I then went to Ohio State, doing science and math whereas turning into a Eucharistic Minister within the Newman Center. I met extra pupil scientists with religion, and was glad that at the least some individuals didn’t suppose I used to be an atheist. I additionally had my first analysis expertise, finding out SS-433, an fascinating black gap the mass of an enormous star.

In Cambridge, England, I pursued a doctorate in astronomy whereas studying in regards to the very checkered and bloody previous of Catholicism in England. Catholics are solely about 10% of the inhabitants there, however they’re religious and stick collectively. I met Catholic scientists, and had the pleasure of serving the Novus Ordo Mass, which gave me an appreciation of my father’s serving the Tridentine Mass in his native Budapest. My analysis included writing laptop applications to simulate the evolution of fuel clouds in intergalactic house as seen within the foreground of quasars, that are vivid “lighthouse galaxies”.

After Cambridge, I moved to La Serena in Chile, a seaside city 50 miles west of the large worldwide astronomical observatory at Cerro Tololo. I didn’t complain to go to a Catholic nation. I simply wanted to study Spanish. I discovered a pal in a seminarian who spoke no English — excellent! The Archbishop there spoke English, and typically slipped astronomy references into his homilies. I appreciated having Catholic holidays off and seeing non secular processions, however realized that Chileans who observe their religion are very religious however are solely 10-15% of the inhabitants. I used to be glad to get my palms on a few of the greatest telescopes on the time, and realized find out how to use them to look at quasars.

The subsequent place was Heidelberg, Germany. That was nice. I’ve family within the nation and the delicacies is “home-cooking” for me. I attended the college chaplaincy there, devoted to Edith Stein simply earlier than she was canonized, and met extra pals for all times. I did extra analysis on quasars, often travelling to make use of German time on telescopes in Spain and Chile (as Germany itself is cloudy).

Then it was on to NASA in Maryland, the place I frequented the University of Maryland Catholic Student Center and likewise went to Hungarian and German-language Masses in Washington. I labored with the Hubble Space Telescope workforce on its imaging spectrograph. I continued to check quasars, and likewise began finding out younger stars as a result of there have been younger star consultants there. Young stars led me to Johns Hopkins in Baltimore and an ultraviolet analysis satellite tv for pc for finding out them.

Lastly I got here to the University of Louisville! Here I (by chance) began the Archdiocesan Faith & Science Dialogue Group, by inviting Archbishop Kurtz to one of many lectures related with the 2017 photo voltaic eclipse. He answered! That reply has led to this Archdiocese turning into a religion and science hub, as I may see at this 12 months’s Society of Catholic Scientists “St. Albert Initiative”, the place over 400 college students got here to Bellarmine University for a day of discussing religion and science.

I really like attending to know the Church in numerous international locations and assembly the devoted, who train me new methods to understand and join with the Lord whereas chasing these Big Questions.