NASA Names "Rolling Stones Rock" on Mars

NASA Names "Rolling Stones Rock" on Mars
August 22, 2019

The team behind NASA's InSight lander has informally named a rock on Mars “Rolling Stones Rock” after the band.

A little larger than a golf ball, the rock appeared to have rolled about 3 feet (1 meter) on Nov. 26, 2018, propelled by InSight's retrorockets as the spacecraft touched down to study the Red Planet's deep interior. In images taken by InSight the next day, several divots in the orange-red soil can be seen trailing "Rolling Stones Rock." It's the farthest NASA has seen a rock roll while landing a spacecraft on another planet.