Freddie Mercury: Asteroid named after iconic Queen singer on day he would have turned 70

Freddie Mercury, former frontman of Queen (Getty Images)

An asteroid has been named in honour of Freddie Mercury to mark what would have been the iconic Queen frontman’s 70th birthday.

The naming of the asteroid was announced by Queen guitarist Brian May, who addressed fans at the ‘Freddie For A Day’ 70th birthday party, held at the Montreux Casino, Switzerland, in aid of the Mercury Phoenix Trust.

May said the asteroid will now be known as ‘Asteroid 17473 Freddiemercury’.

The International Astronomical Union’s (IAU) ‘Minor Planet Center’ provisionally named the asteroid ‘1991 FM3’ when it was discovered in 1991. It was then given the number 17473.

“When a proposal to name an asteroid after Freddie Mercury was received by the Minor Planet Center, the IAU group selected this asteroid partly due to the ‘FM’ in the designation,” said May.

“The name approved by the IAU is the formal and official name forever to be associated with this asteroid; so, any scientific papers in the future that study this asteroid will refer to it as ‘17473 Freddiemercury’.”

NASA research astronomer and director at the Southwest Research Institute, Joel Parker, is credited with issuing the Certificate of Designation.

The asteroid is currently floating around in the main asteroid belt, between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter.

Not quite travelling at the speed of light, the asteroid is about three-and-half km across. It is also a so-called ‘dark object’, reflecting only about 30 per cent of the light that falls on it, which makes it difficult to see from Earth.