May couldn’t join the rest of the team, because “I’m rehearsing for a tour with Queen but my heart goes out to you as this precious sample is recovered.”
Brian May is not only known as one of the best guitarists in history as part of the Queen, but also for his career as an astrophysicist.
And the musician showed himself to be a celebrity in this field by helping NASA recover the first sample of an asteroid, called Bennu, brought from space.
“Hello NASA people, space fans, asteroid fans. “This is Brian May from Queen’s, as you know, but I’m also very proud to be a member of the OSIRIS-REx team,” said of the 76-year-old guitarist.
The OSIRIS-REx spacecraft flew past Earth seven years after its launch to collect samples from Bennu, which is more than 4.5 billion years away in 2020.
Brian May’s task was to create stereoscopic images from the spacecraft’s data so the mission could find a safe place for the sample to collect.
May couldn’t join the rest of the team, because “I’m rehearsing for a tour with Queen but my heart goes out to you as this precious sample is recovered.”
“Happy Sample Return Day and congratulations to everyone who worked hard on this mission, especially my dear friend Dante. God bless you all,” he added.
Now the OSIRIS-REx mission is to collect samples from the asteroid Apophis.
