Old Pueblo Archaeology Center’s “Third Thursday Food for Thought” program will feature the presentation “Padre Kino, Scientist” by astronomer Christopher J. Corbally, S.J., Ph.D. This free Zoom online presentation will be held on Thursday, November 19, 2026 from 7:00-8:30 pm Mountain Standard Time.

There is a statue of the Jesuit missionary and explorer Padre Kino in Tucson. He is on horseback. The head of his horse is drooping. It has been a long and hot day of travel in the Sonoran desert. But Kino sits upright, and he has a “blue shell” clutched to his chest by his right hand. He clearly has had a brilliant idea. That idea connects his early expedition to Baja California, to where he has just met the O’Odham, in Tucson. That idea needed his travels and his science.

Father Chris invites, “Let us, via his grasp of science, connect the dots and understand his great insight. His science covered many disciplines. Kino was a mathematician, an astronomer, an instrument maker, a map maker, an agriculturalist, and a cattleman. So it is going to be a wide-ranging story. As a Jesuit and an astronomer, I find the story a fascinating one. Please join me for the telling of it on Thursday, November 19.”

Christopher Corbally is a Jesuit priest and an astronomer with the Vatican Observatory Research Group and an Adjunct Associate Astronomer at the University of Arizona Department of Astronomy. He ministers to a wide variety of Catholics, including Native Americans, in Tucson, Arizona.

To register for the Zoom webinar go to https://us06web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_iuJL189lTj6t2prQI2OfhQ. For more information contact Old Pueblo at info@oldpueblo.org or 520-798-1201.

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Caption: Equestrian statue of Padre Kino on a street in Tucson, photo by Christopher J. Corbally, S.J.