New asteroids named after three Jesuits and a Pope

Even a common verb like “to desire” — a word apparently without any particular philosophical meaning — has a direct connection with the stars, revealed by its Latin etymology de-sidere. In every age man has longed to establish a connection between his brief passage on Earth and the mysterious lights that illuminate the night; the poetic names of the constellations and of the Zodiac originate precisely from this, from centuries-old interweaving of myth, literature and everyday life (hence the story of Orion the hunter, or an Alexandrian jewel such as the Coma Berenices). In our time, science offers a further way of giving a concrete response to this desire: giving a name to newly discovered celestial bodies after ‘real’ people. As of 7 February, four asteroids have been named after the Pope who directed the reform of the calendar, Gregory ...