Duck Productions Ltd.Queen guitarist Brian May started the New Year with a big bang, so to speak, by releasing his first solo single in more than 20 years, “New Horizons (Ultima Thule Mix),” a song that celebrates the ongoing mission of NASA’s New Horizons space probe.
The track was officially released on New Year’s Day, and was given its premiere just after midnight ET at the New Horizons Mission Operations Center in Laurel, Maryland, timed to coincide with the probe’s flyby of Ultima Thule, an object in the Kuiper (pr: like Viper) Belt in the outer reaches of our solar system.
May, who has a doctorate in astrophysics and has been involved in the New Horizons project for years, was in attendance at the control center when the probe made what is considered the most distant flyby of an object by a spacecraft in history — about 4 billion miles from Earth.
May co-wrote “New Horizons” with award-winning lyricist Don Black, and produced the track, which also features contributions from longtime Meat Loaf drummer John Miceli. The song includes an audio clip of a congratulatory message that the late Stephen Hawking gave to the mission’s scientists when the New Horizons probe passed by the dwarf planet of Pluto in 2015.
“This project has energized me in a new way. For me, it’s been an exciting challenge to bring two sides of my life together — astronomy and music,” says May. “To me, [the New Horizons mission] epitomizes the human spirit’s unceasing desire to understand the Universe we inhabit.”
You can check out an animated video for the song at Queen’s official YouTube channel. The clip features an animated depiction of the probe’s journey through the solar system and past various planets, moons and other interplanetary objects.
Copyright © 2019, ABC Radio. All rights reserved.