So the "Vulcan" name was a bad candidate to begin with?
Why was it allowed on the vote, then? I don't understand.
The International Astronomical Union has dissed William Shatner and the public to name Pluto's moons Kerberos and Styx, instead of most-popular moniker Vulcan. Despite having won the SETI-run Pluto Rocks contest to come up with names for the fourth and fifth - and tiniest - moons of the heavenly body with 174,062 votes, Vulcan …
the name "Vulcan" as in the ancient god and not a pointy eared prat with silly eyebrows, is already taken in astronomy circles.
urbain le verrier called his hypothetical planet between the sun and mercury vulcan, and though it is now proven not to exist there is a very good chance of a ring of asteroids in that orbit, reffered to as vulcanoid asteroids. anyone want to guess what these would be called on discovery? heres a clue... vulcan1, vulcan2, vulcan3....
(they are hypothetical but there is eveidence to support the claim, they are however extremely hard to find as the area they would inhabit suffers from serious light pollution from the sun making telescope observation difficult)
besides as the god of fire and volcanos it would hardly be a fitting name for a little rock out in the coldest boondocks of our solar system.
"besides as the god of fire and volcanos it would hardly be a fitting name for a little rock out in the coldest boondocks of our solar system."
Right. Shatner's campaign reminds me when trekkies obtained to name the only Space Shuttle that wouldn't have never gone to space "Enterprise". They were asked to wait for a "production" Shuttle, but they were blinded by their faith and didn't listen - guess the Futurama episode that shows Star Trek fans turning it into a religion got it right.
The names choosen are the correct ones for Pluto, Vulcan would have been out of place, for a dark, cold remote world. Maybe Shatner was thinking about hell's fire - anyway Vulcan is not hell despite Vulcan's ears - but in Greek mithology the underworld is different form the Christian one - it includes places for every soul, bad and good ones, and it's often described as a "dark" place.
Kirk should let Spock choose astronomical names, he didn't studied enough at the Starfleet Academy...
In fairness Enterprise was always intended to be converted to into an orbiter after the ALT program completed. Under the original plan she would have been the second functional shuttle to reach space.
The unexpected number of changes that had to be made to the shuttle design during Columbia's construction ended up precluding Enterprise's conversion on the basis of cost.
AFAIK trekkies were told to wait because the name was already choosen, but they didn't listen.
Columbia building started in 1975, and thereby the decision not to retrofit the Enterprise was taken early enough to suggest to wait.
If they had let the NASA name the first Shuttle "Constitution", and name a later Shuttle "Enterprise", they would have had a "Constitution-class" Enterprise....
He has already been immortalised by neurologists; time perception is, of course, governed by the Shatner's Bassoon. There's still plenty of potential for the name Vulcan to be assigned to more appropriate rock in the galaxy, there isn't a shortage of them. I daresay the trekkies will have cause to celebrate one day.
It was a mythical planet that was once thought to orbit the sun closer than Mercury...
Which is why some people thought it was a bad idea for Pluto (ignoring the theme the IAU correctly went for).
In Star Trek Vulcan was a hot desert planet, so having a real Vulcan out in the outer part of the solar system doesn't tend to go with that theme either.
You no longer peer into optics - today you just watch a monitor who shows you what the CCD sensors see - maybe on the other side of the world (or orbiting around it, if you are using Hubble or any of the other space telescopes, or even from deep space probes) - and if so you don't have to work all the night. Anyway even before CCDs professional astronomers were using chemical imaging to record their observations - peering directly into a telescope is a thing of the remote past - or of amateur astronomers (and even advanced amateurs now uses CCD cameras a lot).
Moreover imaging is just a part of an astronomer's job - spectral and photometric data are a large part of it, and that's not something you can look at directly.
It's funny to see how the early XIX century astronomer stereotype is still strong today...
Actually you do spend a lot of time peering into optics.
You also spend a lot of your time saying;
This fscking mirror is filfthy when was it last recoated?
I can't see the chip - the fsckign filter wheel has jammed!
There is fscking ice on the inside of this dewar window!
Whose fsckign fingerprint is this on an interference filter?
Although if you work on an interferemeter with 100s of optical components linking 4 telescopes you can get a little frustrated with peering into optics - and your language coarsens a little.
Oh yeh I know I know its all done using very clever techniques and sensors and you actually use the internet for proper science stuff. I just wanted to make the point about childish nerds thinking they have any rights in the naming of celestial bodies, that was all.
Jeez I should check out replies to my comments more often :-)
Not only does it not fit with Pluto's theme, but it doesn't fit with any other aspect of Pluto and it's moon. Vulcan was the Roman god of fire, and the fictional planet on Star Trek was a hot one. What possessed Shat to think that it was a good idea to name an ice ball after these is beyond me.