Pluto's Moons Likely Named Vulcan and Cerberus
William Shatner, aka, Star Trek's Captain Kirk, nominated Vulcan.
Pluto's most recently discovered moons could be named Vulcan and Cerberus —which received the most votes in a contest that closed Monday, Feb. 25 — but there's no guarantee, an NBC News post says. The moons' discovery teams, led by Mark Showalter of the SETI Institute in California, have naming rights for the two moons, and the team originally announced Monday, Feb. 11, that it had opened a contest for public voting on the names. Voters were asked to choose between 12 proposed names based on Greek and Roman mythology related to ancient tales about Hades and the Underworld, as Pluto, and its three previously-discovered moons — Charon, Nix and Hydra — have traditionally been named in this manner. But after William Shatner, the actor who …
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