Professor Matamua has dedicated much of his life to the revitalisation and resurgence of Matariki and has written widely about Matariki.

He is regarded as one of the country's foremost Maori scholars for his contribution to Maori astronomy, star lore and Maori culture was made an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit in 2022. Read more

They have a lot in common with atheists. 85% say their best guess is that intelligent life exists on other planets, far fewer (31%) say that UFOs reported by the military are definitely or probably evidence of this. Read more

If anything living exists on the planet, it doesn't change the calculus in terms of God's relationship with humanity, Brother Guy Consolmagno SJ says.

"Life on another planet is no different than the existence of other life forms here on Earth."

Both Venus, Earth "and every star we can see in our telescopes, are all part of the same universe made by the same God. For that matter, the existence of [other] human beings does not mean that God does not love me," the Director of the Vatican Observatory says.

"God loves all of us, individually, uniquely, completely. He can do that because He's God… that's what it means to be infinite."

Consolmagno says it's a "good thing, perhaps, for something like this to remind us humans to stop making God smaller than He really is."

His comments came after a group of astronomers released a set of papers claiming to have detected the chemical phosphine in Venus's atmosphere.

Through various analyses, the astronomers determined that a living organism was the only explanation for the source of the chemical.

Some researchers dispute the argument, as there are no samples or specimens of Venusian microbes. They say the the phosphine could be the result of an unexplained atmospheric or geologic process.

The Vatican astronomer says phosphine is a gas containing one atom of phosphorus and three hydrogen atoms, and its distinctive spectrum,"makes it relatively easy to detect in modern microwave telescopes."

He says what is intriguing about finding life on Venus is that "while it can be stable in an atmosphere like Jupiter's, which is rich in hydrogen, on Earth or Venus - with its acidic clouds - it should not survive very long."

"The fact that it can be seen in the Venus clouds tells us that it is not some gas that has been around since the formation of the planet, but rather something that must be being produced…somehow…as fast as the acid clouds can destroy it. Hence, possible microbes. Maybe."

Given the high temperatures on Venus, rising to around 880 degrees Fahrenheit, nothing can live on its surface, Consolmagno said, noting that any microbes where the phosphine was found would be in the clouds, where temperatures tend to be far cooler.

"It's intriguing, and deserves further study before we start believing any speculations about it," he says.

Source

• Crux Now
• Image: Daily Express

But already a replacement is waiting in the wings if the presbytery decides to "dissolve" the 130-year-old congregation and sell the church property. Read more

Professor Rangi Matamua was awarded the top communication prize at the Prime Minister's Science Awards on Tuesday. Read more

"There's few places where you can actually see the stars that brightly that the Milky Way casts a shadow.

And you forget that's the way the universe used to look to everybody before we filled the sky with this worthless, artificial lighting.

"Light pollution is real pollution - it injures human beings and it injures animal life and it creates more problems.

People feel more secure when there's lights but in fact, the bright lights at night blind you to things going on in the corners. If you have a lit alley, that's where all the graffiti artists go, because they want to be able to see what they're doing.

"In a homily, Pope Benedict compared light pollution to human sinfulness. We blind ourselves with our own lights so we cannot see God's light; we blind ourselves to the sky that is so brilliant that it is scary and awe-inspiring because we are afraid of awe, and we just want to be in our own little cocoon. We are afraid to look outside.

"The majority of people have never seen the Milky Way. What I'm discovering teaching online class to high school kids is, people can't even see the Moon. Now I don't care how light polluted it is, you can see the Moon if you know to look for it, but nobody knows where to look for it, nobody knows where the Moon is on a night-to-night basis.

"When you go outside, do you even bother to look up and say, 'is the Moon out?'. 'Is there a pattern to the phases of the Moon?'. It's shocking that something as obvious as that has been lost."

The dark sky movement is one the Vatican Observatory finds "incredibly important", even though, ironically, the observatory is building a new telescope in Arizona because of Rome's light pollution.

Source

stuff.co.nz

He has been visiting New Zealand on a lecture tour been sponsored by Catholic Discovery (formerly the Catholic Enquiry Centre).

Consolmagno made this remark after students at Hamilton's St John College challenged him on how he could remain a devout Christian without compromising his scientific integrity.

Not believing in creationism helps, Consolmagno said. He believes in evolution and finds God in the extra, unexplained areas of life.

He said there's no conflict between science and religion, they are complementary.

Queries about what existed before God and if an asteroid will destroy the world were some of the other queries Consolmagno fielded.

When asked about the existence of aliens he said the bible doesn't mention New Zealand, but here we are, leaving the possibility of extra-terrestrials open.

The final questions left the crowd in the high school library in stitches.

"What's your IQ?"

"I don't know," Consolmagno said. "I've never checked."

Consolmagno is a Jesuit religious brother who is "pushing 68" and was appointed by Pope Francis, who he sees several times a year at group audiences, in 2015.

Born in Michigan, a Catholic from birth with an Irish mum and Italian dad, he is an expert in planetary science with a PhD from Arizona University.

He taught at Harvard College, debated science with the late Professor Stephen Hawking and discovered meteorites in Antarctica.

An asteroid was named in his honour by the International Astronomical Union in 2000.

Source

• stuff.co.nz
• stuff.co.nz
• Image: stuff.co.nz

Colin Humphreys, a physicist at England's University of Cambridge, and his colleague astrophysicist Graeme Waddington, say a reference in the Book of Joshua refers to a solar eclipse.

Leading the Israelites into battle in Canaan, Joshua said: "Sun, stand still at Gibeon, and Moon, in the Valley of Aijalon.

"And the Sun stood still, and the Moon stopped, until the nation took vengeance on their enemies." (Joshua Chapter 10, verses 12-14.)

Humphreys and Waddington have published their research in a scientific journal "Astrophysics and Geosciences"

The scientists began their investigation by translating the Hebrew word "dôm."

In English versions of the Bible, it's usually translated as "stopped," as in the sun "stopped moving."

He discussed the word with Alan Millard, a professor of Hebrew and ancient Semitic languages.

Humphreys wondered if it meant the sun "stopped shining".

If so, he thought it might have been referring to an eclipse.

Humphreys then looked for corroboration that the Israelites were in Canaan during the time of a supposed eclipse.

He cross-referenced the Old Testament with an Egyptian text: the Merneptah Stele.

This is a stone inscription produced under the Egyptian pharaoh Merneptah.

Scholars think the final few lines of hieroglyphics refer to a battle with the Israelites in Canaan.

Humphreys' next task was to calculate the exact timing of the eclipse.

He says the Earth was rotating faster than it is now, so this involved calculating its reducing speed.

The three main factors involved tidal friction (resistance from water moving around the planet), the Earth's distance from the moon - as it's getting further away from Earth, and the shape of the Earth.

"When ice sheets stretched across the northern hemisphere, Earth was a different shape, so it spun differently.

"All of these variables have to be factored into any equation that attempts to predict a past eclipse," he says.

He anticipates some pushback - but he's keen to continue investigating.

"In ancient writings, the Bible or Egyptian writing, you do get records of strange events in the sky.

"The first thing to do is assume these are genuine records and study them," he says.

"You shouldn't jump to saying it's a myth without first looking into it."

Source

• A&G
• Smithsonian.com
• Image: Twitter.com

The new 3D map reflects the first 14 months of data collected by ESA's Gaia satellite. Launched on December 19, 2013, Gaia orbits the Sun-Earth second Lagrange point (L2), which lies beyond the moon's orbit, approximately one million miles from Earth. The map is the mission's first publicly available data, which was collected through September of 2015. Read more

Consolmagno is a Jesuit brother and president of the Vatican Observatory Foundation.

He'll discuss the interface between science and humanity, our place in the universe and what it means to us if life is found out there.

The one-day festival, called Is There Life Out There?, follows a similar event last year organised by the island-based Awana Rural Women group, which attracted around 12 per cent of the island's residents.

Other speakers include, top US planetary scientist Dr Faith Vilas, and Gino Acevedo, the Weta Digital creative art director behind such films as Avatar and King Kong.

Also on the bill is Auckland University of Technology microbiologist Professor Steve Pointing, who worked with Nasa researching extreme lifeforms that survive in polar cold and desert heat.

The group's president, Gendie Somerville-Ryan, chuckled when asked how these heavyweights had been pulled to such a remote spot.

"Well, it's just never good luck is it?"

The group was fortunate to have among its members Dr Ann Sprague, a retired University of Arizona planetary scientist who had connections with Vilas and Consolmagno.

"So we did have an in there, but then it's not just about having a contact - it's that these people have to actually be willing to come, and they're even paying," Somerville-Ryan said.

"Partly I think it was the attraction of people being able to come to a small isolated community, where we are desperate for knowledge, basically."

Source

• nzherald.co.nz
• Image: sciencemag.org

Jesuit Brother Guy Consolmagno, who is the new president of the Vatican Observatory Foundation, said news of such a discovery won't come as a big surprise.

Br Consolmagno said he hopes the questions about life on other planets will focus more on how humanity sees itself.

"When we say human, human as compared to what?" he asked.

While the discovery of life elsewhere will neither prove nor disprove the existence of God, Br Consolmagno expects it will open the door to ponder what form salvation history may take in other intelligent societies.

He addresses such questions in a new book, "Would You Baptize an Extraterrestrial? . . . and Other Strange Questions From the Inbox at the Vatican Observatory", set to be published in October.

He said there is no conflict between science and religion.

Continue reading

With the Milky Way being one of up to 500 billion galaxies, we're looking at 10 sextillion planets.

Numerically, one sextillion looks like 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 - times this by ten and the chances of us being alone in the Universe appear slimmer than ever.

Space discoveries are happening at a rapid pace and the past year has been filled with fascinating discoveries including most recently, 'the Godzilla of the Earth'.

Here are eight discoveries about the vast and stunning universe we live in. Continue reading

Br Guy Consolmagno was given the award by The American Astronomical Society's (AAS) Division for Planetary Sciences.

The AAS praised Br Consolmagno for becoming "the voice of the juxtaposition of planetary science and astronomy with Christian belief".

It also praised him as a "rational spokesperson who can convey exceptionally well how religion and science can co-exist for believers".

Br Consolmagno is known for his media work, including his BBC radio show "A Brief History of the End of Everything".

He believes that Catholic scientists should not hesitate to share their love of science with their communities.

"Show them that our religion does not tell us what 'facts' we can believe, but rather our religion gives us the reason why we go looking to try to understand those facts," he said.

Continue reading

"It's a big deal. It's like finding a needle in a haystack—the sense of discovery is hugely exciting" said Dr. Bond, who led the team of researchers from Massey, Auckland, Canterbury and Victoria Universities, as well as from Japan and the United States. "It has profound implications and opens a new chapter in the history of the Milky Way."

On May 18 in in the same paper, the famous physicist Stephen Hawkings declared he finds no room for heaven in his vision of the cosmos. Comparing the human brain to a computer he said "there is no heaven or afterlife for broken-down computers."

It seems that the universe is growing bigger with escalating and exciting possibilities while Hawking's vision has stalled, for isn't this the man who asked the famous question: "What is it that breathes fire into the equations and makes a universe for them to describe?", says Catherine Hannan

Read about Ian Bond's discovery

Image: Flickyr