Uwingu Announces 2017 Mars Valentine's Day Gifting

BOULDER, Colo. - Feb. 6, 2017 - PRLog -- Space and astronomy public engagement company Uwingu announced today a very special way for anyone to celebrate Valentine's Day 2017—by naming a crater on the world's only citizen's Mars map for a special Valentine's someone. Prices start at $10, with half of each purchase going to fund space research and education grants through The Uwingu Fund. Each Valentine's Mars map crater purchased at Uwingu.com comes with a special, commemorative downloadable/electronic Valentine's Day certificate.

Said Uwingu's marketing chief, Ellen Butler, "What could be more special for Valentine's than a place name on a map of a whole other world?"

Naming of Martian craters by the public is part of an Uwingu project to create the first citizen's Mars map, with names for all of the approximately 500,000 unnamed features there. Craters can be named for anyone, including friends, family, co-workers, heroes, pets, places on Earth or in space, sports teams, musical artists, and more.

Uwingu's citizen's Mars map at https://www.uwingu.com is already the most complete Mars map in the world with over 20,000 named features, and will be taken to Mars and used by two private space missions:  Mars One and Time Capsule To Mars. Available crater sizes 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.

Uwingu is a for-profit, public engagement space company based in Boulder, CO, led by senior planetary scientists and astronomers (see http://www.uwingu.com/about-us/who-we-are/). Uwingu's missions are to connect the public to space and space exploration in new ways, and to create a grant fund to support a wide range of space efforts by individual space researchers, educators, and organizations.

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About Uwingu. Uwingu (which means "sky" in Swahili, and is pronounced "oo-wing-goo") consists of a team of leading astronomers, planetary scientists, former space program executives and educators. Uwingu is dedicated to creating new ways for people to personally connect with space exploration and education, while raising funds to support non-profit organizations in space exploration and astronomy. Uwingu's users come over 190 countries across the globe, and are helping to create the first crowd-sourced map of Mars. Individuals around the world have named over 20,000 craters, and the Uwingu Fund has already allocated over $140,000 in grants. Visit Uwingu's website to learn more at www.uwingu.com.

Follow Uwingu on Twitter at @UwinguSky; and friend Uwingu on Facebook. Join the monthly newsletter for space tips, news, updates on grants and more: at http://www.uwingu.com/newsletter/