Free Craters!

From Uwingu: A Special Mars Craters Naming Celebration for Father’s Day

Want to make your mark on a map of Mars? Now’s your chance,  by naming Mars craters on Uwingu’s Mars map.  If you haven’t heard of Uwingu before, it’s a space advocacy group that donates part of its income to science research and education. I’ve written about this amazing group a number of times and have participated by naming craters on their Mars map. I also get their newsletter each day, which is a fun way to learn  new things about the universe. In return, the money I’ve given has gone to a good cause.

This year, Uwingu has a Father’s Day gift special. They invite you to sign up for their daily newsletter called Uwingu Daily Space Explorer. It costs $19.95 per year and each day you are greeted with a gorgeous space image and a peek at the science behind the image.  It’s a wonderful way to explore and learn.

Now, here’s the cool kicker: if you sign up between now and June 16th, you’ll get a free gift certificate on June 17th that will allow you to name one or more Mars craters on the Uwingu Mars map. You can name it for whoever you choose (Dad, maybe?).  After you do the naming, you get a certificate showing the location of the crater and the name that you can share.

About That Mars Map

The Mars map is a way to get craters  named so that future explorers will have a ready-made set of place names they can start using right away.  The map is already planned for inclusion on the Mars One Robotic Lander and the Time Capsule to Mars project. The idea is simple: there are hundreds of thousands of craters on Mars that are unnamed. If we’re going to send people to Mars, it’s best to have names of places for them to use as they begin their explorations. It facilitates communication between them and Earth; it helps that everyone involved has the same set of names to use. If you stop to think about it, giving place names isn’t going to be high on the list of things to accomplish by the first missi0ns, and it’s always better to have names in place already.

To solve that problem, Alan Stern and the folks at Uwingu came up with the idea of putting together a Mars map with names already in place. Normally there’s a charge to name a crater (beginning at $5.00 and goes up by crater size).  So far, people around the world have joined in to do the naming. The best part?  They’re supporting science education and research. More than 19,000 craters have been named, and the Uwingu Fund has given out more than 150,000 in grants. These help students, educators and scientists do their work. All that money came from folks naming craters, exoplanets, or subscribing to the Daily Explorer.

So, if you’re looking for an interesting gift for your dad (or in his memory), check out this offer over at Uwingu. Simply subscribe to Updates this week, and get a gift certificate to name a crater on the Mars map!

The post Free Craters! appeared first on .