Asteroids named for 4 nuns who charted the skies

Between 1910 and 1921, this four-member team of religious sisters catalogued nearly half a million celestial bodies, and now they have their own.

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Four Italian nuns, who cataloged nearly half-a-million celestial bodies, now have their names etched in the sky. Each of the sisters, from the Suore di Maria Bambina community, now has an asteroid named for her, joining a long list of religious astronomers – mostly Jesuits – who have been so honored.

According to Katholisch, the nuns in question are Srs. Concetta Finardi (1896-1975), Luigia Panceri (1893-1982), Emilia Ponzoni (1883-1950), and Regina Colombo (1885-1953).

Though the nuns had joined a nursing order, the four-member team was assembled in 1909 by Jesuit priest Fr. John Hagen, who headed the observatory at Georgetown University.

Fr. Hagan approached the nuns after learning that other observatories of the era were primarily employing women to map the skies. He required workers with “normal eyesight, patience and an aptitude for methodical and mechanical work,” and this suited the sisters, as they had all been preparing to work as nurses.

They began their astronomical work in 1910, but by 1921 the team had recorded the brightness and position of 481,215 celestial bodies. Their discoveries were so vast that it required a 10-volume catalog to publish.

Their asteroids are now officially named “(709193) Concettafinardi,” “(714305) Panceri,” “(627981) Ponzoni,” and “(634659) Colombo.” There was also a fifth asteroid named for Jesuit priest, Fr. Gabriele Gionti, born in 1967, who works at the Vatican Observatory, called “(611494) Gionti.”

Learn more about the nuns here:

The five asteroids were all discovered at the Mount Graham Observatory, in the US, a part of the Vatican Observatory. With the naming of “Gionti,” the number of celestial bodies named for Jesuits has risen to 41, which is the most of any religious order.

The naming of an asteroid is a process of many steps, starting with observing the same celestial body on two consecutive nights. Then it may be submitted to the IAU’s Minor Planet Center, which issues a temporary identification number. The number is not made permanent until it has been confirmed to be a new discovery and its exact orbit can be determined.

Naming the body is not, however, up to the first person to discover it, but rather to the one who provided the data to calculate its orbit.