By Gina Christian
OSV News
Many things are named in honor of popes, including shrines, schools and other structures.
The convention has taken to the heavens — literally.
The Vatican Observatory announced in an April 29 press release that an asteroid has been named in honor of Pope Leo XIII, who formally reestablished the observatory in 1891.
Sometimes known as “minor planets,” asteroids are rocky leftovers from the formation of the solar system some 4.6 billion years ago, NASA notes on its website.
The Pope Leo XIII asteroid is one of four discovered by Lithuanian astronomer Kazimieras Cernis and Jesuit Father Richard P. Boyle, a Vatican Observatory astronomer. The pair detected the bodies using the Vatican Advanced Technology Telescope, or VATT, on Mount Graham, Arizona,
The remaining three asteroids have been named for other key figures in the history of the Vatican Observatory, which traces its roots to the solar calendar reform of Pope Gregory XIII in 1582.
The other newly named asteroids nod to Oratorian Father Giuseppe Lais, an astronomer who served as the observatory’s deputy director for 30 years; Cardinal Pietro Maffi, archbishop of Pisa, Italy, who was observatory president from 1904 until his death in 1931; and Jesuit Father Florent Constant Bertiau, a Belgian astronomer who founded the observatory’s computer center in 1965.
The names for the four asteroids were recently unveiled in the April 13 edition of the International Astronomical Union’s WGSBN (Working Group on Small Bodies Nomenclature) Bulletin.