Mars, Red Planet of Enchantment

* Landscape features named in honor of N.M. places, people

NASA’s Mars rover Spirit is headed to the Sandia-Manzano mountains, in a manner of speaking.

Albuquerque geologist Larry Crumpler, a member of the rover science team, this week named a flat-topped tilted Martian rock “Sandia.”

To him, it looks like the tilted geologic strata that tops the Sandias, he said in a telephone interview Friday from California. It made sense then that the rock next to it be dubbed “Manzano,” he said.

Naming the important rocks in a spacecraft’s field of view is a tradition for planetary scientists, partly for fun but primarily because it makes it easier to talk about the things they are seeing and doing.

Another feature was named “Laguna Hollow,” in honor of students from Laguna-Acoma High School working as student interns with Crumpler.

“Frankly, it looks just like a stock tank that you see in some basaltic volcanic fields in New Mexico,” Crumpler said. “About the same size, too.”

And next to Laguna Hollow is a large rock called “Acoma.”

Crumpler, a geologist on the staff of the New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science, has been working at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory near Pasadena, Calif., since January.

Pictures of the floor of Laguna Hollow were featured on JPL’s Web site Friday, and the “Sandia” and “Manzano” rocks are among the robotic rover’s next targets.

Spirit stopped in Laguna Hollow on Friday, using one of its wheels to dig a small trench, about 3 inches deep, to expose fresh soil.

The scientists want to study traces of water bound up in the Martian soil, Crumpler said.

Crumpler is the mission’s “field geologist.” He is using the same techniques he honed in years of hiking in New Mexico, mapping the state’s volcanic fields.

On Earth, a field geologist’s tools often consist of a rock hammer, a map and a set of colored pencils. Working by remote control, Crumpler is using a computer and Spirit’s cameras and scientific instruments to do much the same thing on Mars.

His maps, which also are posted on the JPL Web site, show Crumpler’s interpretation of the area’s geology superimposed on mosaics made from pictures taken by an orbiting spacecraft, along with some of the images taken by Spirit itself.

“I feel now like I am actually walking on Mars,” Crumpler said.

If you go

WHAT: Albuquerque geologist Larry Crumpler, a member of NASA’s Mars rover science team, will return to Albuquerque this week to give two talks.

WHEN: 7 p.m. and 8:30 p.m. Thursday.

WHERE: New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science, 1801 Mountain NW

HOW MUCH: Cost: $5 for adults, $4 for museum members and $3 for children ages 3-12. Crumpler’s lecture is presented by the museum, Lodestar Astronomy Center and New Mexico Museum of Natural History Foundation. Tickets go on sale at 9 a.m. Thursday.