A Day in the Life of a Priest-Astronomer at the Vatican Observatory
Schedule
Tue Oct 15 2024 at 07:00 pm
UTC-05:00Location
501 E Saint Mary Blvd Lafayette, LA, United States, Louisiana 70503 | Lafayette, LA
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The Cardinal Newman Lecture Series is a tradition at Our Lady of Wisdom that dates back to the 1950s. The lecture series is one way the Catholic Student Center at Our Lady of Wisdom offers ongoing intellectual formation in the Catholic tradition on our secular campus.Our Cardinal Newman Lecture this fall will be presented by Fr. David Brown, SJ, an expert in stellar evolution, and Louisiana native.
This event is free and open to the public. No registration necessary.
Father Brown was born in New Orleans, Louisiana in 1967 and was admitted into the Society of Jesus in 1991 after studies at Texas A&M University. During his Jesuit formation, he studied at Fordham University in New York City during 1993-95, then taught physics at Jesuit High School in New Orleans from 1996 to 1999. From 1999-2002, he did his theology studies during major seminary at the Weston Jesuit School of Theology in Cambridge, Massachusetts, after which he was ordained a priest in 2002. Fr. Brown completed his doctoral studies in astrophysics at the University of Oxford in England in 2008. His thesis dealt with exploring binary star interactions in different environments (metallicities), which might produce subdwarf B (sdB) stars, and their possible implications for various phenomena including the UV-upturn. Fr. Brown joined the Vatican Observatory in November 2008, where he continues to work on various aspects of stellar evolution. He also serves as caretaker of the telescopes of the Vatican Observatory in Castel Gandolfo.
Fr. Brown’s research interests in the field of stellar evolution are primarily concerned with the study of horizontal branch stars, including subdwarf B (sdB) stars. The research is primarily from a theoretical perspective, seeking to study the formation mechanisms of such stellar objects in different environments, including in the Galactic field, open and globular clusters, and elliptical galaxies. Such research encompasses many disciplines, including binary star interactions, cluster studies, and galaxy evolution (the UV-upturn). More recently, he has begun to study pulsating sdB stars (asteroseismology) from an observational standpoint, using the VATT in Tucson. Future plans include the study of the role of stellar rotation in how HB stars evolve
Learn more about the Vatican Observatory at https://www.vaticanobservatory.va/en/
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Where is it happening?
501 E Saint Mary Blvd Lafayette, LA, United States, Louisiana 70503, 501 E St Mary Blvd, Lafayette, LA 70503-2041, United States,Lafayette, LouisianaEvent Location & Nearby Stays:
