The rock guitarist turned astronomer Dr Brian May was back on campus this week to unveil a revolutionary new telescope which has been built onto the roof of the Fraser Noble Building. The massive construction aims to reveal the universe's darkest secrets - right from our own campus.
by Wagril Slane
image courtesy of Jake Roslin
The frizzle-haired Queen rocker whose Bohemian Rhapsody vocals "Galileo! Galileo! Will you do the fandango!" still ring out occasionally on campus, decided to give up the rock star life to take a PhD in Astrophysics. "Coincidentally, Mercury, which was Freddie Mercury's second name, is actually also the name of a planet, man!" May told The Gaudie. "And Galileo did something space-y too, I think. Not only that, but I was a rock star, and - guess what - stars are made of rocks! Or is it gas?"
"For some reason Aberdeen University has really taken me to their hearts," the musical legend continued. "Sod knows why. I can't abide the place, the seagulls mess with my frizzly hair, know what I mean, man? But if they cover my air fare from the Bahamas and give me a few quid, I don't mind turning up once in a while and getting photographed shaking hands with that bald guy again. He ain't got no frizzle hair hahaha."
The new telescope is named the Bloody Large Telescope (BLT) and has a revolutionary sublimating gyroscopic isotoping moomintrope, which enables vibrating subatomic eleventh dimensional DNA in a living cellular organism up to 50 trillion light years away to be detected. "It's amazing, dude," marvelled May. "I'll be buggered if I knows how it works".
Professor Eilyke Maarps of the Department of Geography praised the new telescope. "Many people would say there's no link between the academic disciplines of astronomy and geography," he told The Gaudie. "And they're right. Indeed I can't think of a single reason why you've chosen to ask me to comment on this story except in the hope I say something silly like last time. What? Oh yes, same again, and a whisky chaser, and let's make it a double since it's nearly the afternoon".
"As long as I'm paid well I'll do it," continued May. "Though when I was here last time half the bloody students didn't know who I was, and the other half thought I was Brian Cox, though it's an easy mistake to make, as he's also a former rock star. Turned astrophysicist. Called Brian. Though his hair isn't as frizzly as mine. Can I go now, dude? Gotta bit of tangle situation, need to find a comb, man."
STOP PRESS
The Bloody Large Telescope (BLT) has been temporarily taken out of action for adjustments after it was discovered it had been installed upside down. Instead of measuring signals from faraway galaxies it had instead been pointing directly into Union Brew. Technicians monitoring the output had become suspicious something was wrong when the telescope repeatedly told them that absolutely zero life was being detected.
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