Wednesday, December 02, 2009

Jesuits and Klingons

Ok, there is nothing directly about Klingons in this post except they are (fictional) aliens, but a real Jesuit, Vatican astronomer Guy Consolmagno, SJ, was on the Colbert Report last night (about 10 minutes into the episode) talking about why the Vatican isn't worried that there might be aliens out there. He did a great job (after listening to myself "um" my way through this talk on contemplative science I'm really impressed with anyone who can talk lucidly on camera or radio), and they showed off his glorious new book, The Heavens Proclaim. I'd be partial to the book anyway, given that it's written by a friend and its title comes from the psalms (my favorite book of all time) but the photos are beautiful. A great book for geeks - even if you're not Catholic.


Psalm 19:2 "The heavens declare the glory of God; the sky proclaims its builder's craft.

Photo is of star forming region in the nebula NCG 604, in the nearby sprial galaxy M33 (from Mt. Palomar observatory).

5 comments:

  1. Anonymous10:05 PM

    I'll have to check that book out.

    ReplyDelete
  2. His "God's Mechanics" about geeks and religion is great, too...

    ReplyDelete
  3. I'm echoing Stratoz (just add another "way" before his).

    ReplyDelete
  4. I logged on here to tell you that I'm about to go order this book for my husband for Christmas... and I realized that my daughter bought "God's Mechanics" for her dad!

    I love small coincidences, or synchronicities, like that!

    Thanks for the heads up!

    ReplyDelete