A nearby museum with out-of-this-world rocks

In addition to the remarkable minerals museum in Socorro, there is a free, unique museum in Albuquerque that displays a spectacular, world-class collection of meteorites.

If you want to see a “rock” that includes pieces of the universe 7 billion years old, much older than our own earth (4.5 billion years), head to UNM’s Northrop Hall’s Meteorites Museum. The museum is part of UNM’s Institute of Meteoritics, which was founded in 1944.

The institution was the first in the world devoted exclusively to the study of meteorites and, has over the past 80 years, expanded its mission to become one of the leading centers for research on planetary materials and participation in NASA’s exploration of the solar system.

The meteorites on display in the museum are only a small part of the research and teaching collection, which includes more than 5,000 specimens. All the meteorites in the collection are available for study by researchers within the institute and throughout the world.

The museum displays include chondrites (stony meteorites with small chondrules, interpreted as early melted droplets floating in space), achondrites (stony meteorites with no chondrules), remarkable iron-nickel meteorites, and pallasites (stony iron meteorites with translucent crystals) in a beautiful display that will transport your imagination out of this world.

The 2-ton Norton County stony meteorite that fell in Kansas in 1948 may look like a large piece of concrete but is a unique specimen among celestial objects that provide clues to the early universe. There is a display of meteorites that have been recognized as pieces of the moon (black pieces of basalt — the dark spots on the moon — and anorthosite, the white parts of the moon), and pieces of Mars. Where else can you gaze at a rock from Mars?

The museum is not open every day, so make sure to check museum hours on its website.

(Paul Parmentier, a certified professional geologist retired from California and living in Los Lunas, shares the rich geologic features in Valencia County. He earned a Bachelor of Science degree in geology from Belgium and a master’s degree in geochemistry from Japan. The Geology Landscapes of Valencia County are featured monthly.)