NASA names a rock on Mars after The Rolling Stones

When NASA’s InSight lander touched down on Mars back in November 2018, the wash from the landing rockets hit a golf ball-sized, causing it to roll away about a metre away from the landing site, leaving a little trail in the Martian sand.

A stone. It rolled. Hmm.

After 60,000 signatures demanding that someone do something, NASA-JPL has officially named this pebble “Rolling Stones Rock.”

The news was announced by Iron Man at a Stones show in Pasadena, California, home of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

This is a bit irregular, given that the International Astronomical Union is supposed to the official namer of all things in space, including surface features on planets like, oh, Mars. That means Rolling Stones Rock will be unofficial but because NASA needs to give nicknames to important things it finds with its probes, the stone will appear on maps as “Rolling Stones Rock.”