NASA have named a rock on Mars after the Rolling Stones.

The Rolling Stones

The Rolling Stones

The federal space agency came up with the tribute after their InSight lander knocked over a golf-ball sized stone as it touched down on the planet in November 2018, sending it rolling a metre away.

The space agency said: "It's the farthest NASA has seen a rock roll while landing a spacecraft on another planet."

The group - Sir Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Charlie Watts and Ronnie Wood - hailed the honour as "a milestone in our long and eventful history".

They added in a statement: "A huge thank you to everyone at Nasa for making it happen."

The 'Satisfaction' hitmakers honour was announced ahead of their performance at the Rose Bowl on Thursday (22.08.19), a venue close to NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California.

Lori Glaze, director of Nasa's Planetary Science Division, said: "The name Rolling Stones Rock is a perfect fit.

Part of Nasa's charter is to share our work with different audiences, and when we found out the Stones would be in Pasadena honouring them seemed like a fun way to reach fans all over the world.

The name 'Rolling Stones Rock' is informal but it will be added to working maps of Mars.

NASA geologist Matt Golombek added: "I've seen a lot of Mars rocks over my career.

"This one probably won't be in a lot of scientific papers, but it's definitely one of the coolest."

NASA also used their Twitter account to share an animated video of InSight landing on Mars set to the band's 'It's Only Rock 'N' Roll (But I Like It)'.

And they posted: "Hello "@RollingStones Rock" Who could hang a name on you? Um... us!

"When @NASAInsight touched down on the Red Planet, its engines sent a rock rolling across Mars' surface. We named it for the band. Take a closer look and learn how #MarsRocks get named: https://go.nasa.gov/MarsRocks (sic)"

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