Robert Macke SJ is a Jesuit brother from the Missouri Province who is studying physics and astronomy at the University of Central Florida. Last spring he conducted research on meteorites in various collections around the southwest including Texas Christian University in Fort Worth, the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque, and Arizona State University in Tempe. He also visited Tucson to spend time with the Jesuits who run the Vatican Observatory and meet with one of his research collaborators.

He was also in Nancy, France, for the annual Meteoritical Society conference. There, he presented findings on enstatite chondrites (a category of meteorite characterized by an abundance of the mineral enstatite).

“In simple form, our research was indicating that some basic knowledge about enstatite chondrites may be wrong. Two of the people who did the original work on that 'basic knowledge' were in the session, and they were quite vocal in their objections to the presentation. However, most of the rest of the audience were favorable, so I can’t say it was all that controversial,” he reports.

Macke's current research can be summed up in two words: moon rocks.

“My collaborators and I managed to acquire some samples NASA collected from the surface of the moon during the Apollo era, and I have been conducting physical property measurements on them,” he said. “It is cool to hold rocks in your hand that people spent billions of dollars to travel hundreds of thousands of miles to collect. Our first batch contained three rocks (one from Apollo 14 and two from 15); we have been allocated an additional two. The total mass (more than 100 grams) is far more than outside researchers are generally allocated. Maybe they trust people with SJ in their name?”