More than "just" a rocker...

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Victoria

Victoria

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Oct 31, 2002
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We are each more than what we present.

V

LONDON (AFP) - Queen guitarist Brian May was on Thursday awarded a doctorate, more than 30 years after he first began studying a highly specialised area of astronomy.

May first started his thesis -- titled, "Radial Velocities in the Zodiacal Dust Cloud" -- at Imperial College London in 1974, but abandoned it when Queen's prospects began to brighten.

He finally dusted off his notes last year and handed in his 48,000-word doctoral thesis about three weeks ago to Imperial's head of astrophysics Professor Paul Nandra.

"I'm feeling rather joyful. I cannot tell you how much of a weight off the mind it is," May said after his assessors approved of his thesis and he passed an oral exam.

"What matters is that this stands up in the future and that there are no holes in it."

He plans to celebrate his new title -- he will now become Dr Brian May -- by having a private meal with friends and family but will not be presented with his qualification until a ceremony at London's Royal Albert Hall next May.

The guitarist, who famously played the national anthem on the top of Buckingham Palace at a party for Queen Elizabeth II's golden jubilee celebrations, has not completely neglected astronomy during his musical career.

He recently co-wrote a children's science book with astronomer Sir Patrick Moore, and last month received an honorary doctorate at Exeter University in southwest England
 
This is a great story. Now there's something that I've been meaning to complete, and I'm going to get started on that today.
 
:) The only time it's too late to complete something Connie is when we're being scattered to the four winds.

V
 
Victoria said:
:) The only time it's too late to complete something Connie is when we're being scattered to the four winds.

V
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Thanks, Victoria, and you are absolutely right!
 
Studying astronomy gives new meaning to....

We WILL ROCK you ;)
 
And in the same vein...

By SETH BORENSTEIN, AP Science Writer

WASHINGTON - Astronomers have stumbled upon a tremendous hole in the universe. That's got them scratching their heads about what's just not there. The cosmic blank spot has no stray stars, no galaxies, no sucking black holes, not even mysterious dark matter. It is 1 billion light years across of nothing. That's an expanse of nearly 6 billion trillion miles of emptiness, a University of Minnesota team announced Thursday.

Astronomers have known for many years that there are patches in the universe where nobody's home. In fact, one such place is practically a neighbor, a mere 2 million light years away. But what the Minnesota team discovered, using two different types of astronomical observations, is a void that's far bigger than scientists ever imagined.

"This is 1,000 times the volume of what we sort of expected to see in terms of a typical void," said Minnesota astronomy professor Lawrence Rudnick, author of the paper that will be published in Astrophysical Journal. "It's not clear that we have the right word yet ... This is too much of a surprise."

Rudnick was examining a sky survey from the National Radio Astronomy Observatory, which essentially takes radio pictures of a broad expanse of the universe. But one area of the universe had radio pictures indicating there was up to 45 percent less matter in that region, Rudnick said.

The rest of the matter in the radio pictures can be explained as stars and other cosmic structures between here and the void, which is about 5 to 10 billion light years away.

Rudnick then checked observations of cosmic microwave background radiation and found a cold spot. The only explanation, Rudnick said, is it's empty of matter.

It could also be a statistical freak of nature, but that's probably less likely than a giant void, said James Condon, an astronomer at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory. He wasn't part of Rudnick's team but is following up on the research.

"It looks like something to be taken seriously," said Brent Tully, a University of Hawaii astronomer who wasn't part of this research but studies the void closer to Earth.

Tully said astronomers may eventually find a few cosmic structures in the void, but it would still be nearly empty.

Holes in the universe probably occur when the gravity from areas with bigger mass pull matter from less dense areas, Tully said. After 13 billion years "they are losing out in the battle to where there are larger concentrations of matter," he said.

Retired NASA astronomer Steve Maran said of the discovery: "This is incredibly important for something where there is nothing to it."
 
I have to admit that the study of astronomy is above my head. ;)
 
Victoria said:
The cosmic blank spot has no stray stars, no galaxies, no sucking black holes, not even mysterious dark matter.
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I'll bet if they look a little harder they'll find my d*mn car keys!

The thought of infinity boggles my mind and these guys are trying to measure it. Nice posts V.
 
Thanks... it's beyond my ken as well. But I love it as it puts so many other things in true perspective for me.

V
 
Please no Jihad. Just funning

God "okay, okay who took all of my stars, galaxies, solar systems and nebulla from here and left nothing but this big, big hole in the universe? It was perfectly fine when I finished on Saturday!

D
 
Doug Hatcher said:
God "okay, okay who took all of my stars, galaxies, solar systems and nebulla from here and left nothing but this big, big hole in the universe? It was perfectly fine when I finished on Saturday!

D
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See I just returned from my Star Search... all I could find were remnants of Paris, Lindsay, Nicole and other various and sundry vacuous organisms... sigh. Life as we know it will be changed forever. ;)

V
 
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