Two rocks on Mars have been given names by NASA in the Cypriot dialect, honouring the work of a Cypriot scientist who works on the NASA InSight mission. Dr Constantinos Charalambous is a Cypriot planetary scientist born in Limassol and a research member of the Cyprus Space Exploration Organisation.

Since InSight’s landing on Mars in November, Dr Charalambous has been supporting surface operations for the mission at NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.

During his work, Dr Charalambous was given the opportunity by NASA to name two rocks.  Dr Charalambous called them “moutti” (nose) and “zavos” (askew, pointing at an angle), words of the Cypriot dialect.