A company called Uwingu has for the past 10 weeks enabled people to name some 590,000 craters on Mars. For Mother’s Day, it’s running a “Mothers on Mars” promotion that gets mom a special certificate as well as her own crater name.
The cute campaign is part of a much more serious intention. By naming the craters on Mars, and charging fees of anywhere from $5 to $2,500 for each crater, Uwingu (the Swahili name for “sky”) hopes to promote interest and research in space sciences, and create a new source of funding for astronomy and space exploration.
“We took the public domain map of Mars, cataloged the 1,000 craters that have been named by scientists, and created a way for people to go in and name the rest,” said Alan Stern, co-founder and chief executive of Uwingu. He described Uwingu as “a limited liability corporation with a social mission.”
During the Bush administration, Mr. Stern was the associate administrator at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, directing NASA’s science programs. “I realized that NASA’s stock goes up and down, and the funding changes,” he said. “Many researchers depend on it. Things like medical and energy research have other places to go for funding; this is a way to get that for people who really love space.”
Adafruit publishes a wide range of writing and video content, including interviews and reporting on the maker market and the wider technology world. Our standards page is intended as a guide to best practices that Adafruit uses, as well as an outline of the ethical standards Adafruit aspires to. While Adafruit is not an independent journalistic institution, Adafruit strives to be a fair, informative, and positive voice within the community – check it out here: adafruit.com/editorialstandards
Stop breadboarding and soldering – start making immediately! Adafruit’s Circuit Playground is jam-packed with LEDs, sensors, buttons, alligator clip pads and more. Build projects with Circuit Playground in a few minutes with the drag-and-drop MakeCode programming site, learn computer science using the CS Discoveries class on code.org, jump into CircuitPython to learn Python and hardware together, TinyGO, or even use the Arduino IDE. Circuit Playground Express is the newest and best Circuit Playground board, with support for CircuitPython, MakeCode, and Arduino. It has a powerful processor, 10 NeoPixels, mini speaker, InfraRed receive and transmit, two buttons, a switch, 14 alligator clip pads, and lots of sensors: capacitive touch, IR proximity, temperature, light, motion and sound. A whole wide world of electronics and coding is waiting for you, and it fits in the palm of your hand.
Have an amazing project to share? The Electronics Show and Tell is every Wednesday at 7:30pm ET! To join, head over to YouTube and check out the show’s live chat and our Discord!
Python for Microcontrollers – Adafruit Daily — Python on Microcontrollers Newsletter: Open Hardware is In, New CircuitPython and Pi 5 16GB, and much more! #CircuitPython #Python #micropython @ThePSF @Raspberry_Pi
EYE on NPI – Adafruit Daily — EYE on NPI Maxim’s Himalaya uSLIC Step-Down Power Module #EyeOnNPI @maximintegrated @digikey
