The founder of the legendary rock band Queen has completed
his doctoral thesis in astrophysics after taking a 30-year break to play some
guitar.
Brian May's thesis examines the mysterious phenomenon known
as Zodiacal light, a misty diffuse cone of light that appears in the western
sky after sunset and in the eastern sky before sunrise. Casual observers, if
they live under very dark rural skies, can best see the light two to three
hours before sunrise as they look east, and many people have been fooled into
seeing it as the first sign of morning twilight. A Persian astronomer who lived
around the 12th century referred to it as "false dawn" in a poem.
Astronomers now know that Zodiacal light represents reflected
sunlight shining on scattered space debris clustered most densely near the
sun. The millions of particles range in size from tiny asteroids to
microscopic dust grains, and extend outward beyond the orbit of Mars.
May's work focuses on an instrument that recorded 250 scans
of morning and evening Zodiacal light between 1971 and 1972. The Fabry-Perot
Spectrometer is located at the Observatorio del Teide at Izana in Tenerife, the
largest of the Canary Islands.
The completed thesis appears as the book "A Survey of
Radial Velocities in the Zodiacal Dust Cloud" (Springer and Canopus
Publishing Ltd., 2008).
"I have thoroughly enjoyed my years playing guitar and
recording music with Queen, but it's extremely gratifying to see the
publication of my thesis," May said. "I've been fascinated with
astronomy for years, and I was happy to finally complete my Ph.D. last year and
record my studies of the Zodiacal Light in this book."
May officially received his
doctorate on Aug. 24, 2007, from the Imperial College in London. He also
gained the appointment
of chancellor for Liverpool John Moores University in November of that
year, showing that he's not just any guitar hero.
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