Robert Downey Jr. Announces NASA's 'Rolling Stones Rock'

Before The Rolling Stones took the stage at the Rose Bowl Stadium for a concert on Aug. 22, 2019, actor Robert Downey Jr. announced to the crowd that a rock on Mars had been named for the band by NASA's Mars InSight lander team.

InSight's retrorockets sent "Rolling Stones Rock" rolling about 3 feet (1 meter) as the spacecraft touched down on Mars on Nov. 26, 2018. It's the farthest NASA has seen a rock roll after landing a spacecraft on another planet. A little larger than a golf ball, the rock is about 2.2 inches (5.5 centimeters) in diameter and 1 inch (2.4 centimeters) in height. A series of divots marked its course after being set in motion by the landing.

The Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), a division of Caltech, manages InSight for NASA. JPL is located about three miles away from the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California.

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Rolling Stones