The National Space Society and Uwingu are excited to announce a partnership for a first of its kind auction. Uwingu and eBay will be auctioning the naming rights to the biggest unnamed crater on Mars with 25% of the proceeds benefiting the National Space Society.
With over 14,000 craters named on it by the public in 2014 alone—more than ten times the number named by scientists in the past 50 years, Uwingu Mars’s map is becoming a de facto standard as the most complete map of Martian craters.
The huge, ancient crater, located at 25.1 deg south latitude and 327.3 deg east longitude on Mars is 627 km (391 miles) in diameter—as big as the state of Florida; it is bigger than 60% of the countries on Earth.
As with all Uwingu efforts, 50% of the proceeds will go to Uwingu Fund sales to support space exploration, research, and education grants. For the eBay auction, the National Space Society will be supported via eBay’s Giving Works program. The balance of the Uwingu Fund proceeds from the auction will benefit other grant recipients of the Uwingu Fund, including the Mars One project and other efforts to further space education, exploration, and research.
The name given to the crater by the eBay auction winner will forever be recorded on our new map of Mars, and then sent to Mars by the Mars One project. The winner will also receive a framed certificate of naming, two (2) VIP passes to the Mars Insight mission launch (NASA’s next Mars launch), and a handsome desk globe of Mars valued at over $300.
“Our goals at Uwingu are to get more people excited about space exploration, and to fund space exploration, research, and education projects via this new private sector way,” said Uwingu’s CEO, planetary scientist Alan Stern. “There are still almost 500,000 unnamed craters on our people’s map of Mars.”
The auction will run until Monday December 15th at 4:49pm Mountain Time. Go check it out on eBay: http://www.ebay.com/itm/Naming-Rights-to-the-Largest-Crater-on-the-Uwingu-Mars-Map-/351246953010?
