Pope Leo XIV marks 56th anniversary of moon landing with observatory visit, call to Buzz Aldrin
After praying the Sunday Angelus at his summer retreat in Castel Gandolfo, Leo headed to the astronomical observatory located in the Pontifical Villas, where he took a close look at the telescopes that have supported celestial exploration from a faith-based perspective for decades.
The pontiff was accompanied by astronomers and students participating in the traditional summer school organized by the observatory.
This was Pope Leo's first visit to the observatory, founded in 1891 by Leo XIII. The first vision of it, however, can be traced back to the establishment by Pope Gregory XIII of a commission aimed at studying the scientific data and implications of the calendar reform that took place in 1582.
The Vatican Observatory has generated top-notch research from its scientist-clerics, drawing academics to its meteorite collection, which includes bits of Mars and is considered among the world's best.
Later Sunday, the pope called astronaut Buzz Aldrin, who shared with Neil Armstrong and Michael Collins the historic 1969 moonwalk.
'This evening, 56 years after the Apollo 11 moon landing, I spoke with the astronaut Buzz Aldrin,' Pope Leo wrote on his X account. 'Together we shared the memory of a historic feat, a testimony to human ingenuity, and we reflected on the mystery and greatness of Creation.'
Pope Leo then blessed the astronaut, his family and his collaborators.
There are a few precedents of papal calls to "space.'
In 2011, Pope Benedict XVI rang the space station and asked about the future of the planet and the environmental risks it faced.
Before Benedict, Pope Paul VI sent a radio message to astronauts Armstrong, Aldrin and Collins after their moonwalk, calling them 'conquerors of the Moon.'
Solve the daily Crossword
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
13 hours ago
- Yahoo
Archaeologists Opened a 2,600-Year-Old Tomb—and Found 4 People Who Time Forgot
Here's what you'll learn when you read this story: A team of archaeologists scouring central Italy uncovered a fully intact Etruscan chamber tomb. The sealed chamber is likely around 2,600 years old and contains more than 100 grave goods. Bronze ornaments and delicate silver hair spools are highlights of the find. A rare discovery of a fully sealed Etruscan chamber tomb in Italy came with a bonus: more than 100 grave goods from the seventh century B.C. Located at San Giuliano—about 43 miles northwest of Rome in the hilly region of central Italy—a team of archeologists working on the San Giuliano Archaeological Research Project called the discovery one of the most significant finds in recent decades related to our understanding pre-Roman civilization, according to a statement from Baylor University. 'This completely sealed burial chamber represents a rare find for Etruscan archaeology,' Davide Zori, a professor of history and archaeology at Baylor and a principal investigator on the project, said in a statement. He added that a 'preserved chamber tomb of this age has never before been excavated with modern archaeological techniques' in the region. Once the team entered the 2,600-year-old undisturbed tomb, they found four skeletons on carved stone beds surrounded by more than 100 well-preserved grave goods, including ceramic vases, iron weapons, bronze ornaments, and delicate silver hair spools. The research project has been active in the region since 2016, uncovering over 600 tombs in the necropolis surrounding the Etruscan town, which sits atop the San Giuliano Plateau. So far, though, every other chamber tomb—defined as a tomb carved out of the rock into the shape of a small house with a pitched roof—had been previously looted. Some had been emptied of their valuables as early as the start of Roman occupation in the late third century B.C. Inside the sealed tomb, preliminary analysis suggests the four individuals buried there could be two male-female pairs, but the researchers await more conclusive results. 'The SGARP team has completed the excavation of the tomb, but the study and analysis of the archaeological data yielded by this incredible discovery is just beginning,' Zori said. The research project is a collaboration between a Baylor-led consortium of universities and Virgil Academy in Rome in partnership with the town of Barbarano Romano. The program aims to reconstruct the long-term changes in the human occupation of the plateau and surrounding hills. The team believes that the hundreds of rock-cut Etruscan tombs encircling the plateau were likely associated with the town. 'SGARP seeks to investigate the Etruscan occupation and understand the transitions that followed, including incorporation into the Roman Empire, transformation into a medieval castle, and the final abandonment of the site sometime before 1300 A.D.,' according to a project statement. Along the way, Baylor students remain intertwined in the process. 'Being part of a project that uncovered an unlooted tomb was extremely surreal,' Kendall Peterson, a senior anthropology major from San Antonio, said in a statement. 'It is something that archaeologists hope for their entire careers, and it was incredibly emotional to witness not only our professors' reactions but also the pride and excitement of the local community of Barbarano. It reminded me that we aren't just studying artifacts, we're contributing to a shared cultural heritage that still deeply matters to the people who live there today.' You Might Also Like The Do's and Don'ts of Using Painter's Tape The Best Portable BBQ Grills for Cooking Anywhere Can a Smart Watch Prolong Your Life? Solve the daily Crossword
New York Times
a day ago
- New York Times
A.I. May Be the Future, but First It Has to Study Ancient Roman History
Historians have long clashed over when 'Res Gestae Divi Augusti,' a monumental Latin text, was first etched in stone. The first-person inscription gave a lengthy account of the life and accomplishments of Rome's first emperor. But was it written before or after Augustus, at age 75, died in A.D. 14? Some experts have put its origin as decades earlier. Known in English as 'Deeds of the Divine Augustus,' the text is an early example of autocratic image-burnishing. The precise date of its public debut is seen as important by historians because the emperor's reign marked the transition of Rome from a republic to a dictatorship that lasted centuries. Artificial intelligence is now weighing in. A model written by DeepMind, a Google company based in London, cites a wealth of evidence to claim that the text originated around A.D. 15, or shortly after Augustus's death. A report on the new A.I. model appeared in the journal Nature on Wednesday. It makes the case that the computer program can more generally help historians link isolated bits and pieces of past information to their socially complicated settings, helping scholars create the detailed narratives and story lines known as history. The study's authors call the process contextualization. The new A.I. model, known as Aeneas, after a hero of Greco-Roman mythology, specializes in identifying the social context of Latin inscriptions. 'Studying history through inscriptions is like solving a gigantic jigsaw puzzle,' Thea Sommerschield, one of the researchers, told reporters Monday in a DeepMind news briefing. A single isolated piece, she added, no matter how detailed its description, cannot help historians solve the overall puzzle of how, when and where it fits into a social context. 'You need to use that information,' Dr. Sommerschield said, 'to find the pieces that connect to it.' In the Nature paper, the authors note that roughly 1,500 new Latin inscriptions come to light every year, making the new A.I. model a potentially valuable tool for helping historians to better illuminate the past. In an accompanying commentary in Nature, Charlotte Tupman, a classicist at the University of Exeter in England, called the A.I. model 'a groundbreaking research tool' that will let scholars 'identify connections in their data that could be overlooked or time-consuming to unearth.' The DeepMind researchers trained Aeneas on a vast body of ancient inscriptions. They used the combined information from three of the world's most extensive Latin epigraphy databases: the Epigraphic Database Roma, the Epigraphic Database Heidelberg and the Epigraphik-Datenbank Clauss-Slaby. The third of those archives, based in Germany, holds information on more than a half-million inscriptions. The model could then analyze a particular text and link it to similar examples in that body of information. The final readings consist of sets of probabilities on the text's likely age and site of its geographic origin, and make predictions for likely candidates to fill in an inscription's missing parts. The Google scientists also surveyed 23 epigraphers — specialists who study and interpret ancient inscriptions. The A.I. model aided the vast majority of them in locating starting points for their research as well improving confidence in their subsequent findings. To study the Augustin text, the DeepMind researchers linked it to subtle linguistic features and historical markers. For instance, the model found close parallels in a proclamation by the Roman Senate in 19 A.D. that honored an heir of the emperor's dynasty. With the model's unveiling, DeepMind says it is making an interactive version of Aeneas freely available to researchers, students, educators and museum professionals at the website To spur further research, it says it is also making the computer code of the Aeneas model public.
UPI
3 days ago
- UPI
Pope Leo XIV speaks with astronaut Buzz Aldrin about Apollo 11
Fifty-six years after the Apollo 11 mission, Pope Leo XIV spoke with astronaut Buzz Aldrin on Sunday evening. File Photo by Stefano Spaziani/UPI | License Photo July 21 (UPI) -- Pope Leo XIV spoke with astronaut Buzz Aldrin to discuss the 56th anniversary of the Apollo 11 mission. During the call, the two reminisced on the 1969 landing, "reflecting on the mystery of creation, its greatness and fragility." "Anca and I were grateful and touched to receive the highest blessing from His Holiness, Pope Leo XIV on the 56th Anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing. What an honor! We prayed for good health, long life, and prosperity for all humankind," wrote on social media after the conversation. The pope also recited the midday Angelus and visited the Vatican Observatory at Castel Gandolfo for the Anniversary, where he was able to look through the astronomical center's historic telescopes. In June, Leo, who graduated from Villanova University with a degree in mathematics, hosted participants in the Vatican Observatory Summer school, asking them to never forget "that what they do is meant to benefit everyone."
