CASTEL GANDOLFO (OSV News): The Vatican Observatory announced in an April 29 press release that an asteroid has been named in honour of Pope Leo XIII, who formally reestablished the observatory in 1891.
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 on Mount Graham, Arizona, constructed in partnership with the University of Arizona’s Steward Observatory.
Along with Pope Leo XIII, the newly named asteroids are an acknowledgment to Oratorian Father Giuseppe Lais, an astronomer who served as the observatory’s deputy director for 30 years; Pietro Cardinal Maffi, archbishop of Pisa, 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 Vatican Observatory said the names for the four asteroids discovered by Cernis and Father Boyle were recently unveiled in the April 13 edition of the International Astronomical Union’s WGSBN [Working Group on Small Bodies Nomenclature] Bulletin.
