* Astronomy

Brian May, the guitarist with the rock group Queen, has returned to his first love of astronomy with plans for a book on “the complete history of the universe”.

He is working with Sir Patrick Moore, the astronomer, and Chris Lintott, Moore’s co-presenter on the BBC’s The Sky at Night, to write a cutting-edge account of the universe from birth to a slow death.

May, who abandoned his astronomy PhD when Queen hit the charts in the mid-1970s, has named the book Bang! The Complete History of the Universe, after the Big Bang from which the universe is thought to have originated.

Although the work is targeted at lay readers, the authors have decided it must incorporate the latest research and theories on the evolution of the universe.

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