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Paramount TV via AP file
The original "Star Trek" TV cast included Leonard Nimoy as Mr. Spock, the Starship Enterprise's pointy-eared science officer, and William Shatner as Captain James T. Kirk.
Just one day after astronomers asked Internet users to pick from a list of 12 names for Pluto's tiniest moons, they added a 13th name — Vulcan — at the urging of Star Trek icon William Shatner.
"Vulcan is the Roman god of lava and smoke, and the nephew of Pluto. (Any connection to the Star Trek TV series is purely coincidental, although we can be sure that Gene Roddenberry read the classics.) Thanks to William Shatner for the suggestion!" discovery team leader Mark Showalter of the SETI Institute wrote Tuesday in an update to the "Pluto Rocks" blog.
You don't have to be a hard-core Trek fan to know that Vulcan was the fictional home planet of Mr. Spock, the pointy-eared science officer on the original TV series' Starship Enterprise. Roddenberry was the series' creator. And long before he became a Priceline pitchman, Shatner played the Enterprise's skipper, Captain James T. Kirk.
The point of the "Pluto Rocks" balloting, which runs through Feb. 25, is to weigh public sentiment for the naming of Pluto's two most recently discovered moons, now known as P4 and P5. As the moons' discoverers, Showalter and his colleagues have the right to recommend formal names for adoption by the International Astronomical Union. They thought it would be fun to give the general public a non-binding advisory role.
The contest caught Shatner's eye, and he made a couple of suggestions in a Twitter update: "So what do you think of the idea of naming the two moons of Pluto Vulcan and Romulus? You have mythology, pos[itive] and neg[ative]."
Any voter can suggest write-in names, as Shatner did, but the names should refer to people, places or things in Greek or Roman mythology that have a connection to the underworld. Right now, the two favored names are Styx (which refers to a major river of the underworld as well as the rock band) and Cerberus or Kerberos (which refers to the underworld's guard dog as well as the modern-day network protocol).
More than 120,000 votes have been cast already, with less than 5,000 of them going to Vulcan — so Shatner would have to get those Vulcan votes multiplying like Tribbles to catch up to Styx and Cerberus. But that's not impossible, especially if he puts the word out to his 1.3 million Twitter followers.
As for Shatner's other suggestion, Romulus certainly has a connection to Roman mythology and Trek lore. In mythology, Romulus was one of the founders of Rome, while in the Star Trek universe, the name refers to the homeworld of a race that rivaled the Vulcans. However, one of the IAU's guidelines is that a proposed name should not be confused with pre-existing names for other celestial bodies. That poses "a bit of a problem," Showalter said.
"Romulus, along with his brother Remus, are the names of the moons of the asteroid 87 Silvia," he wrote. "They were discovered by a team led by my good colleague Franck Marchis, now a senior scientist at the SETI Institute."
Sorry, Captain. Because there's already a Romulus in this sector of the galaxy, scientists can't reuse the name. They just cannae do it.
Can you think of other mythological names with science-fiction connections? If they're not already taken, share your ideas in the comment section below — and send them along to the "Pluto Rocks" folks as well.
Update for 8:45 p.m. ET Feb. 14: Vulcan is now the top pick in the "Pluto Rocks" poll, with more than 60,000 votes out of the 234,720 responses registered. Styx and Cerberus are second and third on the list. Showalter has added eight more names to the ballot, bringing the total list to 21. The eight additions are Elysium, Hecate, Melinoe, Orthrus, Sisyphus, Tantalus, Tartarus and Thanatos. "Pluto needs more moons!" Showalter writes in a Cosmic Diary entry.
More about Pluto and its moons:
- Pluto's moons offer clues to alien worlds
- Pluto's atmosphere larger than previously thought
- All about Pluto from NBCNews.com
- Cosmic Log archive on Pluto
Check out Monday's Google+ Hangout about Pluto and the moon-naming project on the SETI Institute's website.
Alan Boyle is NBCNews.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter and adding the Cosmic Log page to your Google+ presence. To keep up with Cosmic Log as well as NBCNews.com's other stories about science and space, sign up for the Tech & Science newsletter, delivered to your email in-box every weekday. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.
This story was originally published on Tue Feb 12, 2013 11:30 PM EST
Leave a Comment:
Vulcan should be saved for a planet!
I believe Mike Brown wanted to name two of his dwarf planet discoveries "Xena" and "Gabrielle" but had to go with Eris and Sedna. Way to pass up two great names. They'd be nice for Pluto's two unnamed small moons.
i agree... vulcan and romelous should be saved for planets... twin planets even better that share the same orbit
Aye, Aye, Capt'n Kirk! .. it's Vulcan!
I would have thought Shatner would've suggested "Priceline"
Thats right Chris.
Vulcan in the sense of being part of Trek does have life on it. But in the sense of Astronomer naming a barren rock in space Vulcan is an insult.
I think Shatner is secretly plotting against Nimoy to make us think that Vulcans really don't exist anywhere in space so naming a lifeless rock in space would be the same way that he views Vulcans lifeless and non existant.
The name Vulcan needs to be saved for a planet that at least has the ability to sustain human life.
When it comes to naming an object in space and seeking inspiration from human culture, what ever is chosen, it has the potential to confer upon that object, a sense of symbolism to all who will come to know of its existence.Therefore it is very important, when selecting a name, that one choose something appropriate.
For it can have the consequences of inspiring untold numbers of people who will come across that object down the road. Those curious enough to investigate that name, can discover more then just hard cold facts. Uncovering a human cultural element attached to such a celestial body, which may be spanning civilizations and millennium. Even potentially extending humanities influence far beyond his earthly bound existence.
The stars, planets and moons belong to everyone.So having a chance to help name a part of them, with input from the public, I think is a great idea.Whatever the name ends up being.
All right. My only concern is that if there is another planet in our or another galaxy what are the galactic copyright laws? I hate to piss off planet named Vulcan.
Can we get Shatner's support for Pluto's planet status?
Do you think an actor's opinion will give the cause more credibility?
Bill Shatner is not just an actor, he is and will always be James Tiberius Kirk!
I don't understand all this hero worshipping of actors. We love the characters that they play, but in the end actors are just ordinary men and women--some are smart, some not so much.
Why do people want the autographs of actors? Why do they watch the Oscars? I love star trek, but Shatner is not the same person as Kirk. Shatner is an actor. Actors by their very nature sacrifice their own selfhood when they create a fictional character. So why the heck do we care about their personal lives? I'm not picking on Shatner, but who cares what ANY actor thinks? Why do we want to know what Matt Damon or Tom Cruise or Jennifer Aniston or whats-her-face from Twilight think in real life?
They're performers! Most of them can't tell a planet from the hind end of a moose.
oh crap. I just said planet instead of satellite. Oh irony.
Lots of mooning involved in all this. Okay, I'm stopping now.
I prefer the name " Zaharoula ".
Bring it on!! I perfer a straight fight to all this sneaking around stuff......ya, "interesting" indeed!! Good call capn' "do they still have sandwhichs in the future"
Iff (if and only if) we ever become important enough to be recognized by the "others" wonder if they will already have a planet called vulcan? I bet "they" understand bodes law very well (apparently, unlike the IAU) and already have pluto charted on "their" maps as a proper planet. Earth and eden as well will probably already be taken after translation that is. I bet a lot of civilizations call their home planets earth, or earthy or earth and rock or earth and water......you get the idea.
Pluto probably has more moons. And I never run sedna's distance through bodes law....wonder where it lies in the scale of things that have been. Bode's law worked for bohr and a bunch of astronomers, without it we might be shy a couple more planets!! the asteroid belt is where a planet should be, but still in the right place...and further on out the smooze distance really widens, so the oort cloud is far from precisely on the money. Trek on dudes and dudettes....
The two moons should be named,
Billy and Mandy
Seriously, think about it. Pluto = Grimm and there you go. :D
Shatner says Vulcan. Call it Vulcan!
I voted for Pluto's moons to be named Mickey and Minnie. Only seems fair. :-)
With all due respect to the Big Giant Head, Vulcan seems a pretty poor choice of a moniker for this distant and cold outpost of our system. The last time the name was proposed it was for a planet that orbited closest to the Sun (which turned out not to exist). Had it been there, the name would have been quite appropriate as Vulcan was the blacksmith of the Roman gods and dwelt close by his flaming forge.
Vulcan would make better since if it was reserved for Alpha Centauri Bb, its surface temperature is estimated around 1200 K and it's te next closest planet to our solar system.
I agree. At least reserve it for a proper planet. People whine that Pluto has been dowgraded from planet status, but this isn't even a significant moon of what is, at best, a minor planet.
Hel - Goddess of the underworld and
Niflheim - Her icy cold realm!
Sorry - wrong mythos. Needs to be Roman or Greek.
Should be Roman or Greek and a minor or attendant deity not another primary god of the underworld.
Billy and Mandy
Fictional? I was certain those show were documentaries.
We watched the historical documents, and think the moon should be named Thermia, after our destroyed home-world.
Never give up. Never surrender.
By Grabthar's hammer, by the moons of Pluto, you SHALL be avenged!
Glad to see Alan's a fan of Sci Fi AND Comedy.
Pluto doesn't get moons, its "not" a planet.
It's a dwarf planet, therefore it has midget moons.
"midget" is so un-PC. Let's agree to call them "mass challenged",
Vulcan should be held for a planet, not for a tiny moon.
By naming one of Pluto's moons Alecto, we'll be honoring Pluto discoverer Clyde Tombaugh with his initials "CT"!
I believe that there is an asteroid Tombaugh. Tombaugh discovered about 15 asteroids himself.
I go for Micky & Minnie and would also vote for Shatner to come out for full planet status to Pluto!
What about Tartarus, the dungeon of the underworld? Or are we limiting ourselves to geographical locations and divine entities?
Did anyone think of naming Pluto's moon "Plutonium"?
That would be weird and wild given that Plutonium was named for Pluto as Uranium was for Uranus and Neptunium for Neptune. Maybe we should rename the element Americium, Erisium.
smith and jones
As Spook would say "Klatu verata nictu"..... Wrong phrase. "Live long and prosper"
Styx was also in Klingon mythology but the article is wrong! So far Vulcan is in the lead!
Besides, who says Earth has the monopoly on naming moons and planets! If the Vulcans come in 2063 they may have another name for it! Anyone working on warp drive??
And Vulcan was a very hot, dry red planet.