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SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
The rover Curiosity descended into Yellowknife Bay, Mars, on Wednesday afternoon where it will remain over the holiday season, says the chief scientist for the mission.

Anthony Foliot stands near a cluster of ice shards he sawed out of the frozen lake earlier this year. Foliot said having a Yellowknife Bay, Mars, is great, but he would like to see a SnowKing Point or a sand castle on the red planet. - Laura Busch/NNSL photo

The zone is the third high-profile landmark on the red planet named after the capital region of the NWT. Curiosity landed in a zone named Yellowknife, while the rover passed through Point Lake, named for a lake located about 400 km north of the city, earlier this week.

"Yellowknife is quite famous for geologists as a place that is sort of a jumping off spot to head out and look at really old stuff," said John Grotzinger, chief scientist of the Mars Science Laboratory Mission on why NASA is using so many Yellowknife-related namesakes for areas on Mars.

Like Mars, most rocks in the Yellowknife area are more than two billion years old, said Grotzinger, and an outcrop north of the city is up to four-billion-years old.

Long-time Yellowknife Bay, Earth, resident Anthony Foliot, a.k.a. SnowKing, said that he was excited to have his neighbourhood recognized in this way, but would love for NASA to take things a few steps farther.

"I hope that the Yellowknife Bay, Mars, has a SnowKing Point like Yellowknife Bay, NWT, has," he said. "It would be good if the Mars rover could put up a little sand castle or something there."

When asked if Curiosity operators had any plans to build a sand castle to commemorate the annual snow castle of its earthen brethren, Grotzinger couldn't help but chuckle.

"We won't be building a sand castle but what we will be doing is making tracks in the sand that's down there," he said.

There is also no word on whether houseboats would be allowed on Yellowknife Bay, Mars, he said.

Grotzinger himself has spent time in Yellowknife, working with the Geological Survey of Canada from 1979 through 1990.

The Mars version of Yellowknife Bay was named because the rocky outcrop that surrounds it is in the shape of a horseshoe, much like a bay, although it likely never held water, he said.

During its stay in Yellowknife Bay, Curiosity will be surveying the area for drilling, much like early residents in Yellowknife. NASA is looking for a drilling location of concentrated rock to make a 1.5-cm wide by five-cm deep hole. Rock crushed by the drill will be analyzed by Curiosity's on-board chemistry lab and scientists will break down the chemistry and mineralogy of the rock.

Much like the recent announcement made by NASA that Curiosity found traces of water on the red planet, this drilling project could have ground-breaking results, said Grotzinger.

"We're not looking for life itself, but we're kind of looking for the building blocks of life," he said.

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