Uwingu Announces Holiday Gifts—From Mars!

BOULDER, Colo. - Dec. 3, 2014 - PRLog -- Boulder, Colorado—03 December 2014—Space company Uwingu announced today the launch of special Mars crater naming certificates commemorating Christmas, Chanukah, and Seasons Greetings, creating a truly novel, ‘out of this world,’ gifting opportunity for the Holidays in 2014.

“Know someone who has everything? Having problems thinking of new gift ideas? Want to give a gift that nobody else will give? Giving a Mars crater name is for you!” said Uwingu’s CEO, Dr. Alan Stern.

Public naming of Martian craters is part of an Uwingu project to create a new Mars map, with names for all the approximately. So far over 14,000 craters have been named by the public on Uwingu’s Mars map, but many more unnamed craters still exist on Mars.

Uwingu’s new Mars map is already the most complete Mars map in the world, and will be taken to Mars and used there by the Mars One private Mars mission. Available craters in Uwingu’s Mars map database range from under a kilometer (about a half a mile) across to over 350 kilometers (over 200 miles) across. Prices for naming craters vary, depending on the size, and begin at $5 dollars.

Craters can be named for almost anything or anyone, including friends, family, co-workers, heroes, pets, places on Earth or in space, sports teams, and musical artists.

Addition to crater naming as a gift, people can also purchase Uwingu gift certificates and Uwingu apparel.

Added Uwingu’s advisor and Mars scientist Dr. Teresa Segura, “I love that these gifts support funding for space research and education.”

Like all Uwingu projects, proceeds from holiday gifting at Uwingu contribute to The Uwingu Fund that creates and gives out space research and education grants.

Uwingu founder and CEO, Dr. Alan Stern is available for interviews about this project this week. Contact him via stern@uwingu.com.

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About Uwingu. Uwingu (which means “sky” in Swahili, and is pronounced “oo-wing-goo”) was founded in 2012 and consists of a team of leading astronomers, planetary scientists, former space program executives and educators. Uwingu is a for-profit company dedicated to creating new ways for people to personally connect with space exploration and education while also raising funds to support non-profit organizations working space exploration and astronomy. A pioneer in this industry, Uwingu is currently creating the first crowd-sourced map of Mars. Since the project began in February 2014, individuals have named over 13,000 craters and The Uwingu Fund has already allocated over $100,000 for grants. Visit Uwingu’s website to learn more at www.uwingu.com.