An anonymous reader shares a Motherboard report: Freddie Mercury, frontman of Queen and transcendent being of pure performative joy and vitality, would have been 70 years old this Monday, September 5. To celebrate the occasion and honor Mercury’s enormous impact on pop culture, the International Astronomical Union (IAU) has officially changed the name of Asteroid 17473, located in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, to “Freddiemercury.” It’s a fitting tribute to the man who exuberantly sang that he was “a shooting star leaping through the sky” in the heart-thumping rock rager “Don’t Stop Me Now.” Queen’s lead guitarist Brian May, who also happens to be an astrophysicist with a namesake asteroid of his own, announced the news to the band’s fans via YouTube on Sunday. Mercury’s asteroid is about three and a half kilometers across, and has an albedo of about 0.3, which means it reflects only about 30 percent of the Sun’s light. “It’s a dark object, like a cinder in space, as many of these asteroids are,” May said. “It’s just a dot of light, but it’s a very special dot of light.”

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Source: Slashdot – An Asteroid Has Been Named After Freddie Mercury