Asteroid Named After Queen’s Freddie Mercury To Honor 70th Birthday

The International Astronomical Union's Minor Planet Center has conferred an asteroid with the name Asteroid 17473 Freddiemercury to honor the late Freddie Mercury on his posthumous 70th birthday on Sept. 5. The public announcement of the same was made by Brian May, the guitarist of the band Queen who published a statement and video on his blog.

"I'm happy to be able to announce that the International Astronomical Union's Minor Planet Center has today designated Asteroid 17473, discovered 1991, in Freddie's name, timed to honor his 70th Birthday", Brian May said.  "This announcement is to recognize Freddie's outstanding influence in the world". Interestingly, May is quite the asteroid aficionado and played a key part in launching Asteroid Day with the European Space Agency (ESA) that promotes the organization of asteroid viewing events to raise public awareness about the threats that asteroids can pose to our planet.

The eponymous Freddiemercury asteroid was discovered in 1991, the year in which Mercury died, in the main Asteroid Belt located between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. The newly named asteroid has an albedo, i.e. the proportion of radiation that it reflects off its surface, of about 0.3 which implies a 30 per cent reflection of light. The Freddiemercury is a dark object, a trait shared by many asteroids, which makes it similar to a cinder in space. The asteroid, which measures around 2 miles across, is not easily spotted by the naked eye as it is incredibly faint, and therefore it wasn't discovered until 1991.

Incidentally, Mercury is the second member from Queen to have been conferred with such an honor, after Brian May lent his name to an asteroid in 1998. Vanessa Mae, Bruce Springsteen, Aretha Franklin, David Bowie, Frank Zappa, Enya and Beatles are some of the other illustrious rock stars and musicians who have asteroids named after them. For now, the Freddiemercury asteroid is quite the befitting, albeit posthumous, gift for the man who referred to himself as "a shooting star leaping through the sky", in a song.