The Vatican Observatory Annual Report 2024 is now available. Click here for it in PDF form. Click here for all the annual reports, going back years and years.
In my opinion, this annual report is special. Why? Because it features Br. Bob Macke and his work with the OSIRIS-REx sample return from the asteroid Bennu.
Br. Bob’s work is not inherently more valuable than the work of anyone else at the Observatory. I think my own work is pretty darned good, thank you very much. There’s a section about it in AR 2024. But I did not work on something so recognizable as a NASA mission that has received almost as much news coverage as the James Webb Space Telescope. Because this sample return mission has received so much press, Br. Bob’s work on measuring the physical properties of the returned material from Bennu is going to have far more impact with the broader public than my work on Galileo. I discovered some new things about Galileo and the tides, even though Galileo is a field that lots of people have worked over for many many years. Br. Bob’s work, however, is the sort of thing that will help the general public understand just how much the Vatican Observatory is a place that does serious science. A NASA science mission is something everyone recognizes as serious science, and Br. Bob was invited to be part of that mission, and he was invited based on the other work that has been going on here at the Vatican Observatory.
The following, from his article in AR 2024, explains how that came to pass:
Meteorites are rocks that originate on asteroids or other planetary bodies that have, through the course of their orbital evolution, found their way to the surface of the Earth. There, they can be picked up and studied directly in the laboratory. Astronomers study light, but meteoriticists study the objects themselves! We have learned a lot about meteorites over the past couple of centuries, most of it within the last 50 years. Most of these rocks formed in the earliest days of the solar system, about 4.56 billion years ago, in what are called “parent bodies”. These then broke apart and left a few remnants that today we call “asteroids”. Because this material is so old, it preserves an important record of the earliest days of our solar system and can help us to understand that history and the processes that led to planet formation….
In the laboratory, we can study many different things about meteorites, such as mineralogy, petrology, and isotopes; and physical properties such as density, porosity, heat capacity, thermal conductivity, and so much more. Anything that you can think of that might be important about a specimen, you can study using some instrument. Here at the Vatican Observatory, where we house the Vatican meteorite collection of over 1200 specimens, we have a laboratory where we study mostly density and porosity of meteorites. I (Br. Bob Macke, S.J.) have gained a reputation as an expert in measuring meteorite density and porosity, and that is how I got invited to participate in the sample analysis team of the NASA OSIRIS-REx mission….
Initially, the Vatican Observatory was not involved in the OSIRIS-REx mission. That changed after the spacecraft successfully grabbed a specimen from the surface and started its journey back to Earth. That’s when it became time to assemble the sample analysis team — a group of scientists from around the world who would study the specimens in their laboratories. Andy Ryan, the working group lead for the Sample Physical and Thermal Properties Working Group (SPTAWG), contacted me for some ideas about determining specimen density and porosity.
Initially, he was simply consulting me for advice, particularly about pycnometry (using a gas to measure the volume of specimens). Because we wanted to make the measurements in the pristine environment of a “glove box” (not like in an automobile, but rather a sealed chamber where a scientist can manipulate objects using gloves attached to holes in the side of the chamber), which has very strict limits on materials, it quickly became apparent that an off-the-shelf instrument wasn’t going to work. We would have to design a custom device from scratch. My advice evolved from sharing my expertise to presenting some basic design ideas for the device itself.
Eventually, in 2021, Andy asked me to join the sample analysis team, take charge of building the device, and also be responsible for the actual measurements on samples.
Br. Bob continues,
The involvement of the Vatican Observatory was noteworthy enough to be the subject of several articles. They often were given catchy and amusing titles, like “NASA needed help with a mission. The Vatican came to the rescue” (Mashable.com, September 16, 2023). Some months later in an interview with Vatican News, even the administrator of NASA, Bill Nelson, mentioned the involvement of the Vatican Observatory in the OSIRIS-REx mission (Vatican News, May 10, 2024).
As Br. Guy points out in his Director’s Letter in AR 2024, “The words of Pope Leo XIII establishing the Specola Vaticana in 1891 continue to define who we are and why we do what we do: to show the world that the Church supports good science.” A headline like “NASA needed help with a mission. The Vatican came to the rescue” illustrates clearly how involvement with a NASA mission can serve to show the world just that.
So peruse AR 2024. A lot more went on at the VO in 2024 than working with NASA; more even than working on Galileo. Lots of good science was done at the VO in 2024 by lots of different people. This very special Annual Report 2024 is one of the best ways to learn about that science — and since the Report is freely available, it is also a great way to share with others what we at the VO are doing. Send the link to someone you know. Help show the world that the Church supports (and does) good science.
