Mia Boothroyd, our PhD student is attending the Vatican Astronomy Summer School
Mis is spending the month there learning about images from the James Webb telescope. She is also applying to borrow some meteorites from the extensive Vatican collection for her PhD.
Mia Boothroyd, a PhD student in the Department of Geoscience, is currently visiting the Vatican Observatory just outside of Rome as part of the Vatican Astronomy Summer School. 25 students from around the world are lucky enough to take part each year.
This year the students are learning about the processing of James Webb Telescope images in a month-long course. Because her PhD is on the evolution of the Moon and Vesta (second largest asteroid), she is also intending to use the Vatican’s extensive meteorite collection to obtain some samples to bring back to Aarhus for her own research.
Mia had a shock when the Pope unexpectedly came to Castel Gandolfo to see what the students were learning about. You can read more about it here: https://www.vaticannews.va/en/pope/news/2025-06/exploring-the-cosmos-fills-us-with-wonder-pope-tells-scientists.html