Trekkies Vote 'Vulcan' Into the Solar System

New submitter jollyrgr3 writes "If William Shatner gets his wish, one of Pluto's two new moons will be named Vulcan. The two small moons were discovered recently, and the SETI Institute launched an online poll to let people choose names. Captain Kirk himself suggested the names Vulcan and Romulus. Vulcan was accepted as a candidate, and Shatner exhorted his Twitter followers to vote. Vulcan ended up winning by a landslide, taking 174,000 of the 450,000 total responses. The next highest was Cerberus at just shy of 100,000. The names still have to be approved by the International Astronomical Union, as they have the final say. Leonard Nimoy approves."

Comments

FU Trekkie geeks

[GodfatherofSoul]

I'm starting a NEW poll for Wookie and Ewok.

Re:FU Trekkie geeks

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't you mean Kashyyyk and Endor?

Re:FU Trekkie geeks

[Spy Handler]

Wookie and Ewok are not in Greek or Roman mythology and do not qualify under the rules, while Vulcan does.

Re:FU Trekkie geeks

[DarthStrydre]

Don't you mean the forest moon of Endor? I understand that the moon and the planet it orbited (long long ago) had the same name colloquially, but if we must be pedants, let us be truly pedantic.

That will just confuse things.

[khasim]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vulcan_(hypothetical_planet)

Vulcan was the name of the hypothetical planet between Mercury and the Sun.

Re:That will just confuse things.

[ShanghaiBill]

Vulcan was the name of the hypothetical planet between Mercury and the Sun.

That made sense because Vulcan was the name of the Roman god of fire. It seems like an odd name for a moon frozen at 43K (-230C).

Re:That will just confuse things.

[guises]

You can't name moons after gods anyway, it's against the convention. Planets get named after gods. Cerberus is the more appropriate name.

Re:Very Amazing

[Capt.DrumkenBum]

No, the thing that amazes me most is that Shatner has twitter followers!!

Shatner is a very funny man, who doesn't take himself very seriously.
Why wouldn't he have twitter followers?

Hrm

[Jarnin]

While I'm a huge fan of Star Trek and Astronomy in general, I don't think a moon of Pluto should be called Vulcan. Why? The name "Vulcan" is from Roman mythology, and is the name of the Roman god of fire and volcanos. Last I checked, Pluto and it's moons were too far away from the Sun to have any connection to fire and volcanos. In other words, Pluto's moons are too far outside of the system to make the name "Vulcan" appropriate. I hope the IAU has the sense to name this moon after something that fits contextually.

Now if they'd discovered that Mercury had a moon, Vulcan would be the obvious choice!

these moons have been hard to find

[ozduo]

so please call one "G spot"

Men become gods

[Mandrel]

I voted for Orpheus and Eurydice. I thought it fitting that probably the last two decent-sized objects in the planetary part of the solar system be named after a man and his god-wife to symbolize humanity's progress.

Re:I also approve...

[OzPeter]

Make it so.

You should hand in your Geek card. It was that pussy Picard who used that phrase.

Downgraded from fiction to reality

[mynameiskhan]

I guess now it is being downgraded to a moon of a former planet.

Since there's new Star Trek Movies

[Roman Coder]

In keeping with the new Star Trek movies, they should be called "Lens" and "Flare".

Re:Meh.

[Dins]

So start submitting articles...

Re:Trekkies jumping the gun

[FatLittleMonkey]

They did the same thing with the shuttle Enterprise. A drop-test glider that never flew in space. Well done boys.