As reported by the Newcastle Herald last week, the US space agency recently discovered the Endeavour Crater on Mars, naming various points along its rim after Australian landmarks coined by Captain James Cook.

There's already a Cape Tribulation, Point Hicks and other Australian east coast landmarks along the 22 kilometre-wide impact crater but Kurri Kurri's Astronomical Society of the Hunter president Col Maybury contacted the US space agency this month after noticing that Nobbys, described by Cook in 1770 as "a small round rock or island", had been overlooked.

NASA confirmed yesterday that that could soon change.

"Generally our process for assigning names to features on Mars doesn't include using names suggested by the public," principal investigator for NASA's Mars rovers Spirit and Opportunity Steve Squyres explained.

"That said . . . we plan to stick with our naming convention of features discovered by James Cook on his Endeavour voyage, so Nobbys Head could be a candidate name."