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3D Images Of Galaxies Will Rock You (Ft. Queen)

March 5, 2026·23 min·1 clip

Brian May describes how staring at winter stars pulled him through deep depression, calling them 'brave stars' that will outlast us all.

Host Flora Lichtman opens by noting that a new book, 'Islands in Infinity: Galaxies 3D,' is the first stereoscopic book ever produced on galaxies. The book was created by Dr. Brian May — guitarist of Queen and a trained astrophysicist — and Dr. Derek Ward-Thompson, an astrophysicist at the University of Central Lancashire who specializes in star and planet formation. A third collaborator, Finnish image artist J.P. Mezzavaino, developed the technical process for converting flat astronomical photographs into three-dimensional representations using available spatial data about each galaxy. Ward-Thompson explains that the 3D images are scientifically meaningful, not just visually striking — in particular, a chapter on interacting galaxies shows collisions in a way that has contributed to scientific debate about how those collisions are occurring. May traces his lifelong passion for stereoscopy to a childhood experience with a Weetabix cereal prize: a cardboard stereo viewer and a card of a hippopotamus that appeared so three-dimensional he felt he could fall into its mouth. He says the experience made him permanently skeptical of two-dimensional imagery. The conversation turns to the false binary between art and science that May was taught in school, which he has rejected throughout his life. He cites Isaac Newton and astronomer Patrick Moore as historical examples of people who excelled at both. Ward-Thompson adds that music is deeply mathematical, governed by frequencies, overtones, and rhythm. May describes the chaotic period in his early twenties when he was simultaneously teaching at a comprehensive school in Brixton, trying to finish a PhD with a skeptical supervisor, and attempting to break into the music industry with Queen. He ultimately chose music, joking that it was probably a good decision for science. Ward-Thompson argues that scientists need to learn from artists how to communicate, noting that science has historically behaved like a high priesthood requiring initiation. May expresses concern about the current information environment, where flat-earth claims and moon-landing denial spread easily, and argues that the responsibility of their generation is to give children inquiring minds. The conversation touches on Queen's 'Don't Stop Me Now,' which May says he was ambivalent about due to its hedonistic content and his worry for Freddie Mercury's lifestyle at the time, though he now recognizes it as a work of genius. May then speaks candidly about finding comfort in astronomy during periods of deep depression, describing the winter stars — Orion, Sirius, Gemini, Aldebaran, and the Pleiades — as brave stars that will outlast him and provide the same strength to his descendants. Ward-Thompson nominates May's Queen song '39 as his favorite, explaining that it encodes the relativistic twin paradox: a traveler leaves Earth, experiences one year, but returns to find a hundred years have passed and his beloved is dead. May confirms the scientific backbone but says the song was primarily about the human and emotional experience of loss across time. May reflects that on a recent acoustic tour he felt like the time traveler himself, performing for generations born after he wrote the song.

As heard by us

A warm Science Friday conversation about 3D galaxy images, Brian May, and why art and astronomy belong together.

Science Friday uses a glossy idea, galaxy images rendered in 3D, to get at a more human question: what changes when space stops looking flat? Flora Lichtman talks with astrophysicist Derek Ward-Thompson and Brian May, better known to many listeners as Queen's guitarist but here…

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Why you'd press play

The Brian May you know from Queen has a doctorate in astronomy and a book of 3D galaxies.

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