Category Archives: Mars

Free Craters!

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

Mars craters namingWant 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!

Opportunity Phones Home; Sends Great Image

A Visual Message from the Opportunity Rover

Opportunity is one of the hardest-working public servants in the solar system. For years it has been on Mars, wheeling across the surface and sending back little missives that might look like this if it were a faithful employee out in the field:

opportunity rover
Mars Opportunity Rover spots a dust devil from its perch on Kundsen Ridge. Courtesy NASA/JPL-Caltech

“Sol 4332: I saw a dust devil today. Sent a picture of it back to Earth.”

Oppy got this fantastic view using its Navcam on March 31, 2016. That dust devil should be familiar to anyone who has driven across a desert or near a plowed field and seen dust and dirt rise up as part of a heated column of air. In this case, Martian air is lifting tiny dust grains up from the surface and they whirl across the landscape. The Spirit rover (Opportunity’s twin) saw these all the time. In fact, the dust devils were instrumental in cleaning off Spirit’s solar panels. Spirit went to sleep a few years ago after a tough winter and has never woke up. Opportunity, however, is soldiering on, giving us amazing views of the Martian surface as it wheels its way across the terrain.

Follow the Opportunity mission at NASA’s Mars rovers site. There are images galore and fascinating stories to go with them. It’s is just one of several spacecraft at and ON Mars. Mars Curiosity is half a world away, studying the region around Mt. Sharp. The Mars MAVEN mission is orbiting the planet, measuring the atmosphere,  along with the Mars Orbiting Mission. The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, Mars Odyssey, and Mars Express, are orbiting and mapping the planet, and ExoMars is on its way to the Red Planet.  As you can see, we have a LOT going on at Mars, and more planned for the future.  In the meantime, follow Oppy as she soldiers her way across the Martian surface returning fascinating views.