Brian May’s love tune to NASA

(Credit: Far Out / Denis Pellerin)

Back within the early Nineteen Seventies, Brian May was a promising younger pupil at Imperial College London, learning for his PhD in astrophysics. Sadly, simply as he was on the precipice of ending his thesis on mild reflection via interplanetary mud, a 27-year-old May was known as away to play guitar on a full-time foundation for an upstart rock n’ roll band known as Queen.

The science world’s loss was music’s acquire for the following few many years, as May and his bandmates skilled no small quantity of success. It was all the time only a matter of time earlier than Brian’s true calling would carry him again, in the end, into the laboratory.

In 2007, after a delay of a mere 33 years or so, May submitted his accomplished thesis, titled “A Survey of Radial Velocities within the Zodiacal Dust Cloud”. Suddenly, he was the brand new rock star of the astronomy world, caught up in a whirlwind of fandom and collaborating with a number of the main minds within the area. May was given an honorary fellowship and the position of chancellor of Liverpool John Moores University in 2008, the identical yr that an asteroid was named in his honour. By 2015, he’d additionally develop into an official member of the science workforce for NASA’s ‘New Horizons’ mission, exploring the furthest reaches of the photo voltaic system.

Yes, there have been nonetheless distractions alongside the way in which, together with world excursions with a reunited Queen and singer Adam Lambert, plus the compulsory guitar god appearances at varied occasions just like the 2012 Olympic Games closing ceremonies and many others, and many others. In 2018, although, Brian was lastly capable of put his musicianship towards one thing extra related to his precise chosen profession, as NASA requested him to jot down and carry out a tune to basically function the theme for the following leg of the New Horizons mission, which might ship an area probe previous Ultima Thule (aka 486958 Arrokoth) within the Kuiper belt out by Pluto—the place no man-made object had gone earlier than.

“It was Alan Stern, the venture instigator of this superb NASA mission, who threw down the glove,” May recalled. “He requested if I may give you a theme for Ultima Thule which might be performed because the NH probe reached this new vacation spot. I used to be impressed by the concept that is the furthest that the hand of man has ever reached. It might be by far essentially the most distant object we’ve ever seen at shut quarters, via the photographs which the house craft will beam again to earth. To me, it epitomises the human spirit’s unceasing want to grasp the universe we inhabit.”

And so, out of a deep appreciation for this historic second, Brian May stepped away from the telescope, picked up his guitar, and penned a love tune to NASA with lyrical help from Don Black. The ensuing anthem, ‘New Horizons’, premiered on New Year’s Day, 2019, on the NASA management centre at Johns Hopkins University in Maryland, on the identical day that the house probe reached Ultima Thule.

May handles the vocals on ‘New Horizons’ himself, other than the tune’s introduction, which makes use of sampled audio from physicist Stephen Hawking. The complete tune is nearly shockingly upbeat and completely optimistic, channelling May’s childhood surprise right into a celebration of mankind’s ongoing push ahead into the cosmos. Listening to the monitor, one may virtually imagine that every one these years spent on tour buses and awards phases with Queen simply may need been worthwhile for Brian May in any case, as he managed to seek out one other strategy to contribute to the reason for house exploration whereas additionally incomes a hell of much more cash and admiration within the course of.

As an added little bit of optimistic information, May is recovering and “doing very well” after a stroke this previous summer time. He plans to pursue extra music, astrophysics, and environmental activism within the years to come back.

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