- Article (blog post)
- 1200 words
- Level: all audiences
A post by Vatican Observatory astronomer Br. Guy Consolmagno, S. J., on The Catholic Astronomer blog. Br. Consolgmagno discusses two conferences on star formation that were hosted by the Vatican Observatory: one in 1957, the other in 2013. The 1957 conference was attended by luminaries such as Fr. George Lemaitre and Fred Hoyle, who respectively invented, and named, the Big Bang; Jan Oort, for whom the cometary Oort cloud is named; and Martin Schwarzschild, of black hole “Schwartzchild radius” fame. The 2013 conference was, however, a much more diverse gathering.