A dramatic, fresh impact crater on Mars dominates this image taken by the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter on Nov. 19, 2013. NASA\/JPL-Caltech\/Univ. of Arizona<\/p>\n
Naming landmarks on Mars isn't just for scientists and rover drivers anymore. <\/p>\n
Starting today (Feb. 26), anybody with an Internet connection and a few dollars to spare can give a moniker to one of the Red Planet's 500,000 or so unnamed craters, as part of a mapping project run by the space-funding company Uwingu. <\/p>\n
\"This is the first people's map of Mars, where anybody can play,\" said Uwingu CEO Alan Stern, a former NASA science chief who also heads the space agency's New Horizons mission to Pluto. \"It's a very social thing.\" [7 Biggest Mysteries of Mars] <\/p>\n
Putting your stamp on Mars isn't free. Naming the smallest craters will set you back $5, with prices going up as crater size increases. Uwingu will use the money raised by the project -- which could be more than $10 million, if people name every available Martian crater -- to fund grants in space exploration, research and education, which is the company's stated chief purpose. <\/p>\n
\"We're developing this grant fund -- the Uwingu fund -- for people who've been hit by sequestration,\" Stern told Space.com. \"There's nothing like it right now. They have no place to go; it's either NASA, NSF [the National Science Foundation] or you're out of luck.\" <\/p>\n
Stern hopes the effort will succeed in naming all of Mars' cataloged craters by the end of 2014, helping to fill in a lot of gaps in Red Planet cartography. (The company aims to solicit names for other Red Planet features, such as canyons and mountains, in the future.) <\/p>\n
The project could also provide a sort of cultural snapshot, revealing what people are thinking about and what's important to them at this moment, he added. <\/p>\n
\"It's like taking a picture of ourselves,\" Stern said. \"What will people put? Will there be a lot of craters named for politicians? For artists, for relatives, for places on Earth? Sports teams?\" <\/p>\n
The crater-naming project is not a contest, working instead on a first-come, first-served basis. Names will be accepted immediately and will remain approved unless Uwingu officials later determine them to be profane or otherwise offensive. <\/p>\n
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Name a Red Planet crater for $5<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A dramatic, fresh impact crater on Mars dominates this image taken by the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter on Nov. Continue reading