Not content with producing hits such as We Will Rock You, the Queen guitarist Brian May has achieved a new milestone: he has published his PhD thesis in astronomy.

Nearly 40 years after May began his PhD as a student at Imperial College, London, he finished the work and had it approved by examiners. Last week it was formally published to critical acclaim from other academics.

“I have thoroughly enjoyed my years playing guitar and recording music with Queen,” said May, 61, who earlier this summer received his doctorate in a ceremony at the Albert Hall. “But it’s extremely gratifying to see the publication of my thesis. I’ve been fascinated with astronomy for years.”

Entitled A Survey of Radial Velocities in the Zodiacal Dust Cloud, his thesis analyses what happens to the dust particles left over from the formation of the solar system about 4.6 billion years ago. The dust is also formed by collisions between asteroids and comets.

An abstract summing up of the work puts it in more academic terms, stating: “The aim was to achieve the first systematic mapping of the Magnesium I absorption line in the night sky.”

The full work runs to more than 200 pages and covers such arcane subjects as the “building of a pressure-scanned Fabry-Perot spectrometer, equipped with a photomultiplier and pulse-counting electronics”.

To some Queen fans that may sound a bit Radio Ga Ga. But it refers to the fact that May used a giant telescope on Tenerife to prove for the first time that dust clouds in the solar system orbit the sun in the same plane and direction as the planets.

May was able to return to his subject because so few people had looked at it since he began his studies. There is likely to be renewed interest in his research now because of the recent discovery of hundreds of planets around other stars.

As in the solar system, such planets probably formed from the gravitational collapse of clouds of dust, so research into the leftovers — zodiacal dust — is becoming popular again.

Mike Lockwood, a physics professor at Southampton University, said May’s work was timely, even though it arrived decades after he began it: “As it is becoming possible to detect other planets around other solar systems, the business of how solar systems form has come back into focus.”

May began his thesis in 1970 but abandoned the research four years later when the band he had founded took off.

Years later he resumed his studies when touring with Queen. While other members of the band were indulging in more conventional rock’n’roll pursuits, May would frequently retreat into a corner with his laptop to do his research.

Brian Cox, a physics professor at Manchester University, applauded May’s tenacity.

“Brian May’s achievement is amazing. People do not realise just how much hard work goes into a PhD,” Cox said.

“I was motivated because I wanted to make a career in physics but Brian did not need to do his — he did it from love of the subject. That’s hugely impressive.

“It shows there is nothing nerdy about people who study astronomy and physics. In fact, the motivation for making music and for studying science both come from the same thing — a kind of emotional curiosity about the world and what makes it, and you, work.”

Cox knows from personal experience that rock music and academia are not mutually exclusive.

In 1993, while a physics student, he joined the band D:Ream, whose biggest hit was Things Can Only Get Better, the election anthem of new Labour in 1997.

D:Ream split in that same year but Cox, unlike May, had continued his studies. By that time he had gained a first-class degree in physics and a PhD in high energy particle physics.

As well as continuing to tour with his band, May recently succeeded Cherie Blair as the chancellor of Liverpool John Moores University.

Top marks for Brian

“I have no doubt Brian May would have had a brilliant career in science had he completed his PhD in 1971. But as a fan of Queen, I am glad he left science temporarily.”

Astrophysicist Dr Garik Israelian, who worked with May at the start of his thesis

“If he had followed his father’s wishes, he would have completed his PhD in the 1970s and pursued an academic career.

“He would most probably have become a world-famous astrophysicist but he became a world-famous rock star instead, having convinced his father that this was the right choice.”

Professor Frank Sanderson of Liverpool John Moores University

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