Rocker Brian May took time from practice for his upcoming concert tour to gush about NASA’s success in returning the first-ever asteroid sample from a space-born rock, and to thank NASA for allowing him to be a part of the team.
Many know the rock-n-roll guitarist and singer as a member of the famed British band, “Queen,” but many may not know that he is also a trained astrophysicist who was part of the team to bring a sample back from the asteroid Bennu, a project that ended in a successful recovery on Sunday, according to CNN.
The U.S. space agency announced that it had recovered a 250-gram dust sample from the Bennu asteroid in a mission that took seven years — almost to the day — to complete.
In a video posted by NASA, the rock-n-roll star, who was an important member of the OSIRIS-REx team, let fans know that he was “immensely proud” to have done his small part to help the mission end on a happy note.
“Hello NASA folks, space fans, asteroid aficionados. This is Brian May of Queen as you know probably, but also immensely proud to be a team member of OSIRIS-REx,” the 76-year-old said in a video broadcast on NASA TV Sunday.
“I’m rehearsing for a Queen tour but my heart stays with you as this precious sample is recovered,” May continued.
“Happy sample return day, and congratulations to all who work so incredibly hard on this mission, especially my dear friend Dante,” he said.
“God bless you all,” May concluded.
May supplied crucial stereoscopic images from the spacecraft’s data that gave mission leader Dante Lauretta the information needed to find a stabile area to land on the asteroid for the sample removal.
May also explained a bit more about the significance of the mission in another video:
NASA was thrilled with the successful mission.
“Today marks an extraordinary milestone not just for the OSIRIS-REx team but for science as a whole,” Lauretta said in a statement. “Successfully delivering samples from Bennu to Earth is a triumph of collaborative ingenuity and a testament to what we can accomplish when we unite with a common purpose. But let’s not forget – while this may feel like the end of an incredible chapter, it’s truly just the beginning of another. We now have the unprecedented opportunity to analyze these samples and delve deeper into the secrets of our solar system.”
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