{"id":6413,"date":"2006-08-21T00:41:21","date_gmt":"2006-08-21T00:41:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/viamedia\/2006\/08\/a-new-vatican-star-gazer.html"},"modified":"2006-08-21T00:41:21","modified_gmt":"2006-08-21T00:41:21","slug":"a-new-vatican-star-gazer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/08\/a-new-vatican-star-gazer.html","title":{"rendered":"A new Vatican star-gazer"},"content":{"rendered":"

Fr. Coyne is replaced:<\/a><\/p>\n

\n
\n

Benedict XVI appointed Jesuit Father Jos\u00e9 Gabriel Funes as the new director of the Vatican Astronomical Observatory, replacing Jesuit Father George Coyne. <\/a><\/p>\n

Father Coyne, a native of Baltimore, Maryland, had been director of the observatory since 1978. <\/p>\n

The Vatican press office announced the new director on Saturday. <\/p>\n

Father Funes, 43, is a native of Cordoba, Argentina. He earned a degree in astronomy from the University of Cordoba. <\/p>\n

He studied theology in Rome at the Gregorian University, and earned a doctorate in astronomy from the University of Padua in 2000. Father Funes has done considerable research on disk galaxies. <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n

I suppose it’s safe to assume that Fr. Coyne, who is 73, retired. Fr. Funes is also a Jesuit, and has been on staff at the Vatican Observatory (mostly, it seems, at the Arizona branch), since 2000.<\/a><\/p>\n

\n
\n

Funes specializes in extragalactic astronomy. His field of research includes the kinematics and dynamics of disk galaxies, the star formation in the local universe. the relationship between gravitational interaction and galalctic activity. <\/em><\/p>\n

He studies the kinematics of stars and gas in the inner regions of disk galaxies. By studying the bi-dimensional shape of the emission lines obtained from high spatial resolution, long-slit spectra along the major axes of disk galaxies, it is possible to put constraints on the mass of central<\/em> supermassive black holes, which in the standard paradigm are believed to be nearly ubiquitous in galaxy centers and the engine of the phenomena related to the Active Galactic Nuclei. The goal is to extend demographics studies about super massive black holes in galaxies, in order to better define the relation between their mass and those of the spheroidal components of the hosting galaxies. This relation offers strong clues to galaxy formation and evolution. Moreover, a detailed study of the stellar and gaseous kinematics of Sa galaxies has shown an interesting phenomenon of bulge-disk orthogonal geometric and kinematical decoupling. This peculiarity suggests that the disk could be formed by accretion of material around the spheroidal component that we observe today.<\/em> <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\"800pxromemeridianasantamariaangeliys2\"<\/a> <\/p>\n

‘Cause the Catholics are all against science and stuff. Told you.<\/p>\n

(Meridian line at Santa Maria degli Angeli<\/a>, the church in Rome, dedicated to the Christian slaves who died building the Baths of Diocletian, the site where the church was built. <\/a>Click on image for a much larger, clearer version.)<\/p>\n

\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Fr. Coyne is replaced: Benedict XVI appointed Jesuit Father Jos\u00e9 Gabriel Funes as the new director of the Vatican Astronomical Observatory, replacing Jesuit Father George Coyne. Father Coyne, a native of Baltimore, Maryland, had been director of the observatory since 1978. The Vatican press office announced the new director on Saturday. Father Funes, 43, is…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":180,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6413","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\nA new Vatican star-gazer - Via Media<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/08\/a-new-vatican-star-gazer.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"A new Vatican star-gazer - Via Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Fr. Coyne is replaced: Benedict XVI appointed Jesuit Father Jos\u00e9 Gabriel Funes as the new director of the Vatican Astronomical Observatory, replacing Jesuit Father George Coyne. Father Coyne, a native of Baltimore, Maryland, had been director of the observatory since 1978. The Vatican press office announced the new director on Saturday. Father Funes, 43, is…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/08\/a-new-vatican-star-gazer.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Via Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2006-08-21T00:41:21+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/amywelborn.typepad.com\/openbook\/images\/800pxromemeridianasantamariaangeliys2.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"awelborn\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"A new Vatican star-gazer - Via Media","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/08\/a-new-vatican-star-gazer.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"A new Vatican star-gazer - Via Media","og_description":"Fr. Coyne is replaced: Benedict XVI appointed Jesuit Father Jos\u00e9 Gabriel Funes as the new director of the Vatican Astronomical Observatory, replacing Jesuit Father George Coyne. Father Coyne, a native of Baltimore, Maryland, had been director of the observatory since 1978. The Vatican press office announced the new director on Saturday. Father Funes, 43, is…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/08\/a-new-vatican-star-gazer.html","og_site_name":"Via Media","article_published_time":"2006-08-21T00:41:21+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/amywelborn.typepad.com\/openbook\/images\/800pxromemeridianasantamariaangeliys2.jpg"}],"author":"awelborn","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/08\/a-new-vatican-star-gazer.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/08\/a-new-vatican-star-gazer.html","name":"A new Vatican star-gazer - Via Media","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/08\/a-new-vatican-star-gazer.html#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/08\/a-new-vatican-star-gazer.html#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"http:\/\/amywelborn.typepad.com\/openbook\/images\/800pxromemeridianasantamariaangeliys2.jpg","datePublished":"2006-08-21T00:41:21+00:00","dateModified":"2006-08-21T00:41:21+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#\/schema\/person\/aea2dcda1635c9c2d6030d9c7595725a"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/08\/a-new-vatican-star-gazer.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/08\/a-new-vatican-star-gazer.html"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/08\/a-new-vatican-star-gazer.html#primaryimage","url":"http:\/\/amywelborn.typepad.com\/openbook\/images\/800pxromemeridianasantamariaangeliys2.jpg","contentUrl":"http:\/\/amywelborn.typepad.com\/openbook\/images\/800pxromemeridianasantamariaangeliys2.jpg"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/08\/a-new-vatican-star-gazer.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"A new Vatican star-gazer"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/","name":"Via Media","description":"Amy Welborn","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#\/schema\/person\/aea2dcda1635c9c2d6030d9c7595725a","name":"awelborn","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/9f2\/9f2100183464289fedc5b8a621c15110x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/9f2\/9f2100183464289fedc5b8a621c15110x96.jpg","caption":"awelborn"},"description":"Amy Welborn was born in 1960, the only child of a now-retired professor of political science, a teacher-librarian-artist mother,deceased since 2001, was a teacher, librarian and artist. The Catholicism comes from her side. Amy grew up in a number of places - Indiana - Washington, DC - Lubbock Texas - Arlington, Virginia - DeKalb, Illinois - Lawrence, Kansas - and Knoxville, Tennessee, where the family settled in 1973. She attended Knoxville Catholic High School, then the University of Tennessee where she majored in history. She received an MA in Church History from Vanderbilt University, where she wrote a thesis on the changing role of women in 19th century American Protestantism, and the ways Scripture was used to justify those changes. She worked as as a teacher in Catholic high schools and a Parish Director of Religious Education and started writing for the diocesan press - the Florida Catholic - in 1988. Amy has written columns for Our Sunday Visitor and Catholic News Service at times over the past twenty years. Her articles have been published in venues ranging from Our Sunday Visitor to the New York Times to Commonweal. She has written 17 books. 18, if you included the as yet tragically unpublished novel. Amy has five children, ranging in age from 26 to 4 and was married to Michael Dubruiel, who died unexpectedly in February 2009. She lives in Birmingham, Alabama.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/author\/awelborn"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6413","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/180"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6413"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6413\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6413"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6413"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6413"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}