Now, it is popular to call space rocks after rock stars: Lennon (4147), McCartney (4148) and Zappafrank (3834) got their names this way.

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Curiosity's "visual odometry" software measures terrain features -- such as rocks, rock shadows and patterns in the rover tracks -- to determine the precise distance between drive steps.

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The performance was remarkable for the serious attention to the material, its explicit ties to departed bandmates Keith Moon and John Entwistle, and for the spectacle of a rock opera that actually rocks.

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Sadid, a middle-aged local tuk-tuk driver, took me to a collection of flat rocks covered in white stains near Crocodile Rock.

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Mr Rushden said engineers had found that the rocks around the hole left on the rock face were weathered and the area was being assessed and stabilised on Thursday.

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The rock is peridotite, which is one of the main rocks in the upper mantle, an area that provides a girth below the Earth's crust.

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Further examination revealed a crater rich in shocked quartz and iridium, minerals that are commonly found at impact sites. (These are also the telltales in distant layers of ejecta that the rock in question has come from an impact.) Most important, the rocks above and below Shiva date it to 65m years ago.

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