8:21:00 AM
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23 AUGUST 2019 For decades, the music of The Rolling Stones
has had a global reach here on Earth. Now, the band's influence extends
all the way to Mars. The team behind NASA's InSight lander has named a
Martian rock after the band: 'Rolling Stones Rock.'
The Rolling Stones — Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Charlie Watts and
Ronnie Wood — were delighted with the news and commented, "What a
wonderful way to celebrate the 'Stones No Filter' tour arriving in
Pasadena. This is definitely a milestone in our long and eventful
history. A huge thank you to everyone at NASA for making it happen."
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
thrusters as the spacecraft touched down on Mars 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.
"The name Rolling Stones Rock is a perfect fit," said Lori Glaze,
director of NASA's Planetary Science Division in Washington. "Part of
NASA's charter is to share our work with different audiences. When we
found out the Stones would be in Pasadena, honoring them seemed like a
fun way to reach fans all over the world."
Actor Robert Downey Jr. made the announcement Thursday, Aug. 22 at
Pasadena's Rose Bowl Stadium before the iconic band took the stage.
Backstage before making the announcement, Downey said,
"Cross-pollinating science and a legendary rock band is always a good
thing…"
The InSight mission is led by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, just
up the road from the Rose Bowl in Pasadena. Having helped NASA land all
of its Mars missions since 1997, JPL geologist Matt Golombek is a rock
star in his own right. He and fellow scientists count rocks and assess
the safety of potential landing sites.
"I've seen a lot of Mars rocks over my career," Golombek said. "This
one probably won't be in a lot of scientific papers, but it's definitely
one of the coolest..."
Official scientific names for places and objects throughout the solar
system — including asteroids, comets and locations on planets — can be
designated only by the International Astronomical Union. But scientists
working with NASA's Mars rovers have given lots of unofficial nicknames
to rocks and other geological features. Doing so makes it easier for
them to discuss different objects and refer to them in science papers.
So while the name Rolling Stones Rock is informal, it will appear on
working maps of the Red Planet.
About InSight
JPL manages InSight for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in
Washington. InSight is part of NASA's Discovery Program, managed by the
agency's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. Lockheed
Martin Space in Denver built the InSight spacecraft, including its
cruise stage and lander, and supports spacecraft operations for the
mission. A number of European partners, including France's Centre
National d'Études Spatiales (CNES) and the German Aerospace Center
(DLR), support the InSight mission. CNES provided the Seismic Experiment
for Interior Structure (SEIS)
instrument to NASA, with the principal investigator at Institut de
Physique du Globe de Paris (IPGP). Significant contributions for SEIS
came from IPGP; the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research (MPS)
in Germany; the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH Zurich) in
Switzerland; Imperial College London and Oxford University in the United
Kingdom; and JPL. DLR provided the Heat Flow and Physical Properties
Package (HP3)
instrument, with significant contributions from the Space Research
Center (CBK) of the Polish Academy of Sciences and Astronika in Poland.
Spain's Centro de Astrobiología (CAB) supplied the temperature and wind
sensors.
For more about InSight, visit:
