Earthlings can (unofficially) name a crater on Mars for their moms this Mother’s Day.
The company Uwingu is offering a special Mother’s Day deal to people who want to name a crater on the Red Planet for their mothers. Space fans (and children of space fans) that name a crater on the company’s Mars map before May 10 can get and a special certificate -- either digital or printed and framed -- memorializing the naming.
Prices to name a crater on Mars start at $5 and increase depending on the size of the crater. You can find your favorite Martian crater and name it for your mom on Uwingu’s interactive map.
“Uwingu’s Mars map grandfathers in all the already named craters on Mars, but opens the remainder up for naming by people around the globe,” Uwingu said in a statement.
Uwingu’s names are not officially recognized by the International Astronomical Union — the organization responsible for assigning scientifically accepted names to cosmic bodies. Instead, Uwingu is claiming to make the “first crowdsourced Mars map” filled with names that people have chosen and paid for.
At the moment, people have named more than 16,000 craters on the map, with about 580,000 still available.
Half of the money raised through the crater campaign goes to Uwingu’s grant fund, according to Uwingu. The Uwingu Fund helps sponsor space science and education grants.
The crowdsourced map of Mars is also expected to travel to the Red Planet with Mars One’s robotic lander. A duo of landers were initially expected to launch in 2018; however, the company — which plans to send humans to Mars by the 2020s — has suspended work on those robots, Space News reports, putting the mission’s future into question.