An asteroid soaring between Mars and Jupiter has been named after Freddie Mercury to mark the iconic rock star’s 70th birthday.
Regarded as one of the greatest rock singers of all time, Mercury was the lead singer of the 1970s rock group Queen. He died in 1991.
The honour was announced on Sunday in a YouTube video by Brian May, the former Queen guitarist who became an astrophysicist after the band broke up, the New York Times reported on Tuesday.
The rock, previously called asteroid 17473, shall henceforth be known as “Freddiemercury”, the International Astronomical Union said.
May also has an asteroid named after him.
Reading a citation from the Astronomical Union celebrating Mercury’s musical achievements, May said, “His incredible vocal range and distinctive sound and performance style made him one of the most well-known icons of rock music.”
“And he is regarded as one of the greatest rock singers of all time,” the citation said.
The asteroid now bearing his name was discovered the same year, May said.
Discovered by the Belgian astronomer Henri Debehogne, the freshly-named asteroid, a 3.5km-wide ball of black rubble on the other side of Mars, swings around the sun at 20 kms per second.
Its slightly elliptical orbit never comes closer than 350 million kilometres to Earth, meaning that the heavenly body called Freddiemercury poses no imminent danger to the planet, the Guardian reported.
(Published in an arrangement with IANS)
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