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David Bowie Hits Top Of U.S. Charts: Something He Never Achieved In His Lifetime

By Stacey Cole
Published on: 14:50 PST, Jan 21, 2016

David Bowie passed away on January 10 after a secret 18-month battle with cancer. He was an artist that enriched the music industry, the arts, and the world with his creativity and passion. Even before his passing, people had already started paying tribute to him. Daily Mail reports that three years ago, The Simpsons unwittingly paid tribute to David Bowie and Alan Rickman, who passed away last Thursday.

The Simpsons episode was actually a clip from their Valentine’s episode, and it featured numerous British icons in a parody of the movie Love Actually. In the clip, Rickman is portrayed as Professor Snape from Harry Potter while David Bowie’s song “Young Dudes” played in the background. The clip is being posted online as a tribute to the two stars.

Speaking of stars, the Telegraph reports that a team of Belgian astronomers has named a lightning bolt constellation after the famous musician. The constellation looks very much like the lightning bolt that appears on David Bowie’s face on the cover of the Aladdin Sane album. Near Mars, the constellation was recorded at the time of Bowie’s death.

Philippe Mollet of Belgium’s MIRA Public Observatory explains the process of defining the constellation.

“It was not easy to determine the appropriate stars. Studio Brussels asked us to give Bowie a unique place in the galaxy. Referring to his various albums, we chose seven stars – Sigma Librae, Spica, Alpha Virginis, Zeta Centauri, SAA 204 132, and the Beta Sigma Octantis Trianguli Australis – in the vicinity of Mars. The constellation is a copy of the iconic Bowie lightning and was recorded at the exact time of his death.”

The constellation is just part of a larger tribute to David Bowie that is called “Stardust for Bowie.” There have been some other more down-to-earth and less star-spangled tributes to David Bowie. Us Weekly reports that Dr. Mark Taubert, a British palliative care physician, wrote a thank you letter to David Bowie after his death. The letter was posted in a tweet by the Marie Curie cancer charity.

It is a lengthy and beautiful tribute, with a portion that speaks specifically of David Bowie’s death.

“Thank you for Lazarus and Blackstar. I am a palliative care doctor, and what you have done in the time surrounding your death has had a profound effect on me and many people I work with. Your album is strewn with references, hints and allusions. As always, you don’t make interpretation all that easy, but perhaps that isn’t the point. I have often heard how meticulous you were in your life. For me, the fact that your gentle death at home coincided so closely with the release of your album, with its good-bye message, in my mind is unlikely to be coincidence. All of this was carefully planned, to become a work of death art. The video of Lazarus is very deep and many of the scenes will mean different things to us all; for me it is about dealing with the past when you are faced with inevitable death.”

It is abundantly clear the depths to which David Bowie touched the lives of people around the world over the decades he was giving his creativity to the world. The Telegraph reports that Bowie’s final album, Blackstar, which was released two days before his death, made it to the No.1 position on the U.S. charts on Sunday.

The album is being considered Bowie’s parting gift to the world, and the world is saying thank you to David Bowie in so many ways.

[Composite image containing photos by Evening Standard, Andrew H. Walker / Getty Images]

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harry potter the simpsons Alan Rickman David Bowie
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