Papal stargazers reach for heaven
By David Willey
BBC News, Rome
Monday, 1 October 2007

Conference delegates will grapple will concepts of space and timeFor the second time in seven years the Vatican is hosting a scientific conference for astronomers.

More than 200 scientists from 26 countries including the United States, Britain, Italy, Germany, Russia, and Japan have gathered in Rome for a five-day meeting on disc galaxies.

At the Papal University in Rome, normally frequented by Catholic theologians studying the Bible, the scientists, including Jesuit priests who work at the Vatican's own astronomical observatory, will be grappling with abstruse formulae and mathematical simulations about the physical origins of the universe, involving concepts such as cold dark matter and black holes. the rest image