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Trekkies Vote 'Vulcan' Into the Solar System

Posted by Soulskill on from the live-long-and-prosper dept.

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."

5 of 138 comments (clear)

  1. That will just confuse things. by khasim · · Score: 5, Insightful

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

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

    1. Re:That will just confuse things. by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 5, Informative

      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).

    2. Re:That will just confuse things. by guises · · Score: 5, Interesting

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

  2. Re:FU Trekkie geeks by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Don't you mean Kashyyyk and Endor?

  3. these moons have been hard to find by ozduo · · Score: 5, Funny

    so please call one "G spot"

    --
    I got to the chocolate box before you, that's why the hard ones have teeth marks.