InSight Team Reacts to ‘Rolling Stones Rock’

Scientists with NASA’s InSight team share their excitement about ‘Rolling Stones Rock,’ which was named after The Rolling Stones.

Transcript

[Bruce Banerdt] Never in my life did I think there'd be a tie-in between, you know, the stuff that I was working on in my scientific career and the Rolling Stones. But it's actially kinda cool. I mean, the first exploration of Mars was kicked off back in 1964, which is when the Stones were kinda getting their start too. And now here we are, you know, 50, 55 years later and here we are coming back together again.

[Suzanne Smrekar] Rolling Stones Rock is a golf ball sized rock that rolled across the surface of Mars as our lander was coming down. We have these retro rockets that just dig in to the soil, and they create this, you know, huge blast that sent the Rolling Stone skipping across the surface of Mars.

[Matt Golombek] So I'm the Mars rock doc. [laughs] So I measure rocks from orbit to make sure they are safe landing sights for the spacecraft. And then once we get down on the surface, we typically name features that are in the field of view of the cameras. Yeah, I mean, space science and rock and roll, what a combo. [Matt laughs] Who couldn't like that? [Matt laughs]