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  • Blog Post: An "unofficial" name for Alpha Centauri Bb

    Last week, I wrote about the Uwingu "People's Choice" contest that invites people to vote on a popular name for the nearest known exoplanet. Today, I have two updates: 1) Uwingu has extended the contest by one week, and the winning name now won't be decided until Monday, April 22, at midnight EDT...
  • Blog Post: Uwingu wants you to name Alpha Centauri Bb!

    Astronomers aren’t normally known for being the most creative bunch when naming celestial objects. They stick to catalog/mission designations that involve an oftentimes convoluted or boring mixture of letters and numerals. That’s why many common names for our favorite deep-sky targets get...
  • Blog Post: Uwingu update: Nominate names for planets around faraway stars

    Posted on behalf of the Uwingu team; Astronomy magazine is a proud partner of this effort to raise funding for space science Commercial space start-up Uwingu announced Wednesday the launch of its fully commercial website at www.uwingu.com . The site allows the public to enter names for planets around...
  • Blog Post: Uwingu for the holidays

    Posted on behalf of the Uwingu team; Astronomy magazine is a proud partner of this effort to raise funding for space science At Uwingu , we want to find new ways to connect people to space and the sky, and to use that interest to fuel a new way to fund space research and space education. Back in...
  • Blog Post: Uwingu launches an extrasolar baby book of planet names for our galaxy

    Posted on behalf of Geoff Marcy, Alan Stern, and Pamela Gay from Uwingu “This is where you come in, and make it possible for Uwingu to change the equation of space funding." It’s often been said the sky is full of stars, but hidden from our eyes are a myriad of planets at least as numerous...