Would You Baptize an Extraterrestrial?

Join the Adler Planetarium on Tuesday, November 18, at 7 pm, in the Samuel C. Johnson Family Star Theater for an astronomy lecture and book signing by Br. Guy Consolmagno, an astronomer from the Vatican Observatory. He will be addressing the issue of what it means to be a creature of this Universe in need of baptism, and the larger question of when it is appropriate, or not, to “baptize” modern science and its understanding of our Universe in the light of our religious beliefs. What assumptions are hidden or unrecognized in this question, especially about the significance of ourselves and our belief systems in the face of an overwhelmingly large Universe? What can we learn from explorers in the 15th-17th centuries that dealt with the discovery of other civilizations, as a possible analog to the issues that might be raised in such a discovery in space? And how can this question be re-framed to better illuminate its hidden assumptions and motivate our search for extraterrestrial intelligence?

Br. Consolmagno is curator of the Vatican meteorite collection in Castel Gandolfo, one of the largest in the world. His research explores the connections between meteorites and asteroids, and the origin and evolution of small bodies in the solar system. In 1996, he spent six weeks collecting meteorites with an NSF-sponsored team on the blue ice of Antarctica, and in 2000 he was honored by the IAU for his contributions to the study of meteorites and asteroids with the naming of asteroid 4597 Consolmagno. He is the 2014 recipient of the Carl Sagan Medal from the American Astronomical Society.

$10 General Admission
$5 Adler Members and Students

Click here for details and ticket information.