Tuesday, February 26, 2013

Vulcan tops vote to name Pluto moons

"Vulcan" has topped a public vote to name two recently discovered moons of Pluto. The choice will delight Star Trek fans; Vulcan is the home planet of Spock, science officer on the starship Enterprise. The name had originally been suggested by William Shatner, the actor who portrayed Captain James T Kirk in the Star Trek TV series and films. More than 450,000 people voted in an online poll run by the Seti institute. The California-based organisation - which searches for intelligent life in the Universe - and Dr Mark Showalter, who led the teams that discovered the two moons, offered voters a choice of 21 possible names. Currently, Pluto's two newly discovered moons - spotted in 2011 and 2012 - are known as P4 and P5. Leonard Nimoy, who portrayed Spock, had previously tweeted that Vulcan was the "logical choice".
via BBC News / more

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