Q&A with Michel Denis, ExoMars flight director

NASA has announced the nine finalists for the name of the space agency’s next Mars rover — scheduled for launch in July — and invited the public to vote on the candidates before making a final selection in the coming months.

Comet Siding Spring’s close flyby of Mars last month dumped several tons of primordial dust into the thin martian atmosphere, likely creating a brief but spectacular meteor shower with thousands of shooting stars had any astronauts been there to see it, scientists said.

Ground crews at Vandenberg Air Force Base on California’s Central Coast hoisted NASA’s InSight Mars lander atop a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket Monday, kicking off nearly two weeks of integrated tests and checkouts before the probe’s interplanetary launch window opens May 5.