Will Vulcan live long & prosper next to Pluto?

By Kamal Wallace

updated 5:22 PM EST, Mon February 25, 2013

NEED TO KNOW

Vulcan, Cerberus win online vote for names of Pluto's new moons
Mr. Spock would say the selection was 'logical'

After more than 450,000 votes were tallied in an online election to name Pluto’s two new moons, it appears the “Trekkies” have spoken.

Vulcan was the winner, followed by Cerberus. As any "Star Trek" fan or Starfleet Academy grad will tell you, Vulcan is the homeworld of Mr. Spock. Cerberus is the name of the three-headed dog who guards the entrance to the Underworld.

William Shatner, who played Capt. James Kirk in the series, may have had some influence on Vulcan’s win. He urged his 1.3 million Twitter followers to vote for Vulcan.

So what do you think of the idea of naming the two moons of Pluto Vulcan and Romulus?You have mythology, pos and neg plutorocks.com/ground-rules

— William Shatner (@WilliamShatner) February 12, 2013

Plus, the names have some shared history, since Vulcan was Pluto’s nephew in Roman mythology.

Astronomers at the SETI institute asked for the public’s help to name the recently discovered moons, currently named P4 and P5. The scientists will propose Vulcan and Cerberus to the International Astronomical Union (IAU), where new names will be formally approved in the spring.

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