Guy Consolmagno

Born on 19 September 1952 in Detroit, Michigan, Guy Consolmagno is an American astronomer, Jesuit priest, and director of the Vatican Observatory. Consolmagno earned his BS and MS degrees from MIT and his PhD in planetary science from the University of Arizona. After working two postdocs, one at the Harvard College Observatory (1978–80) and the other at MIT (1980–83), Consolmagno decided to join the Peace Corps and taught physics and astronomy in Kenya for the next two years. In 1989 he joined the Jesuit order, and four years later he was called to serve at the Vatican Observatory, which has one of the world’s largest collections of meteorites. Consolmagno started measuring meteorite densities, heat capacities, thermal conductivity, and other physical and chemical properties. Over the past two and a half decades he has not only amassed a vast amount of data, which is made available to other researchers, but also worked diligently as a spokesperson for science, traveling around the world lecturing on planetary science. He has authored or edited a half dozen popular science books. In 2014 the American Astronomical Society awarded him the Carl Sagan Medal for excellence in public communication. He was made director of the Vatican Observatory in 2015. (Photo credit: Robert Macke, CC BY-SA 3.0 )

Date in History: 19 September 1952