In the summer and autumn of 2006 I read several interviews with Brian May in which he mentioned his desire to complete the PhD that he had abandoned in 1974. I looked up the papers he had published while a PhD student, which were on spectroscopic studies of the motion of the dust responsible for the zodiacal light, and felt that there was a basis for a thesis. Since he had been a student at Imperial, I knew, as Head of the Astrophysics Group at Imperial, that it would be good for the Group if he came and worked with us. I got in touch with him by email and suggested he come and talk about it. He replied enthusiastically and said that he was working on typing up what he had completed by 1974. I gradually realized that I was the only staff member at Imperial who had previously worked on zodiacal dust, so that I would have to act as his supervisor. Eventually we met and I tried to assess whether he would be able to find time for the huge amount of work that finishing off a thesis involves, particularly if it has not been touched for over 30 years. Since some of Brian’s emails were coming from the recording studio I knew there was strong competition for his time.
The Zodiacal Light, that misty diffuse cone of light seen in the West after Sunset and the East before Sunrise, is a beautiful and intriguing phenomenon. Even though everyone can enjoy the sight from a suitably dark location, it is poorly understood, and has been the subject of relatively little research. Brian May began his research into the subject in 1970, and was finally awarded his PhD in 2007, after a hiatus of more than 30 years pursuing his other career as guitarist with his rock band Queen. This book is Brian’s thesis, and as such presents the results of his research for astronomers.
