Pluto's Moons Still Need Names, You Can Now Vote for Star Trek Ones

A short while back, the SETI Institute decided to get the public involved and asked everyone to vote on what the names of two most recently discovered moons of Pluto should be, or to suggest better names if they had any ideas.

It seems that the "public" has jumped at the opportunity; so far, the team has received 30,000 suggestions and gone through all of them.

Since there's only one week of voting left, there won't be any new names added to the list as they would most likely not be able to get too many votes. That said, there were 75,000 votes after the first day and probably many more after that.

One of the first additions to the list was also the most interesting one, Vulcan was proposed, the name of the home planet of Spock, as any Star Trek fan would know.

Vulcan is also the name of the god of lava and smoke in Roman mythology and the nephew of Pluto, the god of the underworld.

The suggestion was made by none other than William Shatner, Captain Kirk in the Star Trek series. Several more additions were included after his suggestion made the list.

So many in fact that it's a shame there are only two moons to name. There is a silver lining though, Pluto most likely has more than the five moons we've discovered so far.

When the New Horizons probe gets close enough, in 2015, it should spot them, if they are there, and these new moons will need new names as well, also related to the underworld, which is why the vote now could prove helpful in the long run as well.

In the meantime, you still have until Monday to vote so, if you have a favorite, you can visit the site and make your pick.