The Colbert Report: Gold, Frankincense and Mars - Guy Consolmagno

(Vatican Radio) The Mars science rover Curiosity landed on the Martian surface Monday morning - shortly after 0530 GMT - to begin a two-year mission seeking evidence the Red Planet once hosted ingredients for life. Mission controllers at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California received signals relayed by a Martian orbiter confirming that the rover had survived a make-or-break descent and landing attempt to touch down as planned inside a vast impact crater.

News: http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/vatican-observatory-head-praises-curiosity-rover-landing/

Vatican City, Aug 6, 2012 / 01:11 pm (CNA/EWTN News).

Vatican Observatory director Fr. José Gabriel Funes thinks that “everybody” should be happy with the successful landing of the Mars science rover Curiosity.

Fr. Funes said he liked the rover’s name because curiosity is “a driving force to do science, to do research.”

Asteroids, Stars, and the Love of God.

Four Jesuits in history have had astreroids named after them. Our guests are the two living astronomers with that distinction. They share their observations of life, faith, friendship, and the universe from their seats in the Vatican Observatory.

Guy Consolmagno is an American planetary researcher and a Jesuit priest. He's the curator of one of the world's great collections of meteorites, at the Vatican Observatory. He gets a lot of questions about how he can be both a priest and a scientist. Luckily, he has a sense of humor about it -- witness a recent appearance on the Colbert Report -- and believes science and religion can work together.

Brother Guy Consolmagno — a staff astronomer and the curator of meteorites at the Vatican Observatory — travels about 100,000 miles each year, splitting his time between Tucson, Ariz., and Rome. The planetary scientist also gives 40 to 50 talks annually at universities, schools and parishes around the world.

The Vatican Observatory Foundation board members met today in Tucson.

This year marks a special anniversary for three of the Jesuits at the Vatican Observatory: Fathers Richard Boyle and William Stoeger each celebrate 50 years as Jesuits in 2011, and Father George Coyne celebrates his 60th!

The Associated Press has picked up the Galileo story too, so Br. Guy and the Vatican Observatory are popping up all over the place.