40 Billion Habitable Planets May Inhabit the Galaxy: Uwingu Salutes Kepler Mission and Team

BOULDER, Colo. - Nov. 6, 2013 - PRLog -- Boulder, Colorado— NASA announced this week that its Kepler space mission has revealed that one in about every five stars in our galaxy likely contains habitable planets. With 200 billion stars in the galaxy, this corresponds to an astounding estimate of 40 billion habitable planets in the “Milky Way.”

Uwingu salutes NASA and the Kepler mission team, which includes Uwingu Advisory Board astronomer Dr. Geoff Marcy of the University of California at Berkeley, for this landmark discovery.

“Kepler is simply revolutionizing our knowledge, and we at Uwingu salute Kepler, its builders, mission controllers, science team, and managers” said Uwingu founder and CEO, Dr. Alan Stern, a planetary scientist. “Kepler is the most  important astronomy mission NASA has launched in the 21^st century. With so many habitable words now estimated to dot the galaxy, we urge the public to think more about names for this plethora of potentially life-bearing worlds, and to visit our web site where anyone—students, space lovers, or just members of the public in any country—can make their own planet naming ideas heard.”

Uwingu’s web site, www.uwingu.com, offers the public an easy and fun, one-step way of participating in the naming of planets that orbit other stars in our galaxy. Anyone can submit a name and a short citation about the name. Any name, in any language, is permitted, so long as the submitted name has not been used before, and isn't profane nor pejorative. Nominations receiving at least 1000 votes qualify the namer to name any discovered (and as yet un-named) exoplanet in Uwingu’s database. Every name nomination and vote contributes funds to make grants to space researchers and educators.

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About Uwingu: Uwingu (which means “sky” in Swahili, and is pronounced “oo-wing-oo”) was formed by a team of leading astronomers, planetary scientists, former space program executives, and educators. The company includes space historian and author Andrew Chaikin, space educator Dr. Emily CoBabe-Ammann, author and former museum science director Dr. David Grinspoon, planet hunter Dr. Geoff Marcy, planetary scientist and aerospace executive Dr. Teresa Segura, planetary scientist and former NASA science director Dr. Alan Stern, planetary scientist and CEO of the Planetary Science Institute, Dr. Mark Sykes, former Executive Director of the Planetary Society Dr. Louis Friedman, and space artists Jon Lomberg and Dan Durda. In 2012, Uwingu successfully concluded one of the 25 largest Indiegogo crowd-funding campaigns ever to launch an ongoing series of public engagement projects. Visit Uwingu’s web site at www.uwingu.com to learn more and join in the public naming of planets around other stars.

Follow Uwingu on Twitter at UwinguSky; and friend Uwingu on Facebook.