Mars and Uwingu

What Will Future Mars Generations Call Their Hometowns?

Ever dreamed about going to Mars? Imagine being one of the first wave of Mars explorers to land and make your home there. You’ll be settling the frontier, a place with exotic places like Olympus Mons, the Valles Marineris, Margaritifer Chaos, and Ares Vallis. There are about 15,000 named features on the planet, but many regions and places remain nameless.

Chances are, by the time Mars is ready for colonization, you could have your place names already to go, courtesy of Uwingu.com‘s latest fundraiser for space science research and education. Today Uwingu is launching a Mars Crater-naming project, seeking public names for more than 500,000 craters. The result will be a fully fleshed out atlas of crater names, accessible to scientists and space missions to Mars, as well as to the public.

Anyone who wants to name a crater can simply go to Uwingu.com, select a crater they want to name, pay a small, and the name they suggest goes on the Uwingu Mars Map. Already-existing place names are already on the map, grandfathered in from previous atlases.

According to Uwingu founder, Dr. Alan Stern (a planetary scientist), bringing the public in on Mars crater-naming raises even more interest in the planet AND the donations collected will help support $10 million in grants to scientists whose space research and educators whose science education efforts have been threatened by budget cuts. “Every crater named adds to the Uwingu fund for space research and education, so naming a crater on Mars lets you make an impact of your own!”

Uwingu has raised money with its past efforts to support projects such as the Allen Telescope Array, operated by the SETI Institute, Astronomers Without Borders, the Galileo Teacher Training Program, and the Purdue Multiethnic Training Program.

Check out the Uwingu.com Website today and read more about this crater-naming fundraiser for science research and education. There’s an FAQ that explains the process in more detail.

Who knows, somewhere, sometime, a scientist will thank you for helping support their research—and maybe you or someone you know will one day set foot in a crater that you helped name.

Note: because I know that several of my readers will remind me of this, there IS a loose set of rules about naming features on Mars that NASA and the international planetary science community use as suggestions for naming features on the planet. This crater-naming fundraiser does not replace any of that, but offers a unique way for non-scientists to get involved in helping create a fleshed-out Mars Atlas. As Dr. Stern wrote to me, “We hope that our fundraiser will greatly accelerate the naming of features on Mars by involving the public!”