Lawrence Gowen, left, Todd Sucherman, and Tommy Shaw, of the band Styx, meet with Alan Stern, New Horizons principal investigator. (NASA/Joel Kowsky)
The New Horizons team is keeping busy these days getting ready for their big historic Pluto fly-by in less than two weeks.
One might say they definitely don’t have too much time on their hands … ahem. (Ok, that lame joke will make sense soon.)
Members of the 70s/80s rock band were on Wednesday treated to a tour of New Horizons’ Mission Control at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, MD.
New color images from NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft show two very different faces of the mysterious dwarf planet, one with a series of intriguing spots along the equator that are evenly spaced. (NASA)
Why, you might ask yourself, would the guys who made the in the world hang out with planetary scientists running humanity’s first space mission to Pluto?
Well, because Pluto has a moon named — you guessed it — Styx. Better yet, a member of the New Horizons team, SETI Institute’s Mike Showalter, discovered ninth planet’s moon in July of 2012.
Showalter and crew claimed mythology offered inspiration, but mission principal investigator Alan Stern from Boulder’s Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) set the record straight.
“When Pluto’s moon was named, it was for the river Styx, but no kidding, we really had you guys in mind too,” Stern told band members Tommy Shaw, Lawrence Gowan and Todd Sucherman.
The band visited with with the team while “Come Sail Away” was piped into the auditorium.
It was, clearly, the best of times.
See more from Styx’ visit:
Take a selfie on Pluto … sort of:
And if you want the full New Horizons / Styx experience, click play and then .
