The New Mexico Museum of Natural History & Science, the LodeStar Astronomy Center, and the New Mexico Museum of Natural History Foundation have announced the opening of a five-month-long celebration of planet Mars and NASA's Mars Exploration Rover mission, entitled Mars Rocks! at the Museum & LodeStar.

Mars Rocks! is a complete program of exhibits, shows and activities, coinciding with NASA's mission to Mars and exploration of the planet with two unmanned Rover vehicles. Mars Rocks! opens on Saturday, December 20, at the Museum of Natural History/LodeStar Astronomy Center, located at 1801 Mountain Road NW, Old Town Albuquerque, and runs through June 6, 2004. Mars Rocks! is presented by First State Bank.

The centerpiece of Mars Rocks! is a one-of-a-kind new exhibit called "Making Tracks on Mars," which features a full-scale, interactive model of the Mars Exploration Rover Spirit, launched on June 10, 2003 and scheduled to land on Mars on January 3, 2004. This is the only location in the country where such a detailed actual-size Rover model can be seen.

Following the Rover landings in January, the "Making Tracks on Mars"exhibit will expand to include near-real-time images of Mars, streamed into the Museum from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The exhibit will be continually updated with new images captured by the Rovers and forwarded to the Museum almost immediately after acquisition.

The Museum's Rover model was constructed by a diverse group of volunteer engineers and artisans from New Mexico, and was accurately rendered using technical drawings and photographs of the Rover provided by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Six teams of automotive mechanics, metal artists, mechanical engineers, and model builders assembled the vehicle in pieces and then joined the pieces on-site at the Museum. Funding for model construction was provided by The Boeing Foundation, as well as numerous local financial and in-kind contributors.

The golf cart-sized Rover model measures approximately five feet in length, width, and height. It sports an interactive camera--the "eyeballs" of the Rover--which visitors can control in order to view on a monitor what the Rover will "see" when it begins examining Martian geology.

Advising the Rover model team has been Dr. Larry Crumpler, a research curator in volcanology and space sciences at the Museum. Crumpler is the only New Mexico scientist involved with the Rover mission. He will be working at NASA's Mission Control when the two NASA Rovers, Spirit and Opportunity, reach Mars in January 2004. Crumpler will be part of the team that directs the Rovers and analyzes the data and images collected, when the vehicles begin their geology-focused mission of examining the surface of Mars for both evidence of water and a record of climate history on the planet.

"This is a 21st Century natural history expedition to another planet, so it is appropriate that a scientist from this museum should be a part of the mission," Crumpler said. "Mars is a distant and difficult place to explore, so the more we know about Mars-like geologic processes here on Earth before going to Mars, the more productive we can be when we are exploring Mars. My professional efforts have been directed at applying what I have learned from New Mexico experience with volcanoes and field geology to an understanding of Martian geology," he said. "Another area that I have found fascinating is the search for landing sites," Crumpler added. "I have participated in landing site searches for Viking Lander 2, Mars Pathfinder, and the Mars Exploration Rovers. Choosing a landing site is always a difficult decision. Where would you go on Earth if you had to choose only one or two sites to explore and understand our own planet?"

The "Making Tracks on Mars" exhibit will also include multimedia kiosks, a realistic Marscape, a mission launch-to-landing animation, and samples of New Mexico rocks that were used by NASA to test Rover instruments.

Throughout the five months of Mars Rocks!, the LodeStar Planetarium will feature "Mars Stories," short stories about the Red Planet and its historical allure, and the Rover missions. The stories will be incorporated into all existing planetarium feature shows. The visually exciting animations and stills used in the stories have been produced by LodeStar's partners at the University of New Mexico's Digital Pueblo Project, a digital arts training program for youth, and they will be presented in "Digital Sky," LodeStar's leading-edge fulldome projection format. Following the Rover landings in January, the stories will be updated to incorporate near-real-time images and data sent back to Earth by the Rovers.

In addition, for the duration of Mars Rocks!, LodeStar's Virtual Voyages Motion Simulator Theater will feature "Rescue Mission to Mars." The Virtual Voyages simulator experience includes an introductory film followed by a thrilling ride. During the ride, the seats move in six directions, synchronized with the on-screen action. The ride simulates a voyage to the Mars of the future, where colonists battle both a natural disaster and an energy crisis that threaten their existence.