NASA’s New Horizon’s mission to Pluto and Charon, Pluto’s largest moon, has proven to be a great success in the scientific community.
Images sent back to researchers have left the world in awe and filled space enthusiasts with excitement, but it seems that the collective joy was short lived as people are actively fighting over what to name the craters on Charon. Fans of the Star Trek universe and the Star Wars universe in particular seem to have passionate disagreements on the subject.
The news should not come as much of a surprise as the two (2) fan bases have been at “war” pretty much since the invention of the internet. Star Trek and Star Wars are some of the oldest entries in mainstream SF entertainment and both franchises have movies and TV shows that have reached several generations.
Like any fans or rival fictional worlds, they argue over everything from who has the best characters, to who has the most complex relationships, to who has the most interesting concepts, to who has the best written dialog, to who has the more accurate science.
But in the case of Star Trek and Star Wars fans, they are now also arguing over who has more of a right to have Charon’s craters named after their show.
How did it all start you may ask? The International Astronomy Union, the only agency on our planet that’s allowed to assign official names to space objects and features, recently decided to celebrate the many findings about Pluto and Charon by letting the general public vote on what to name the craters.
The union made a few different categories available: “destinations and milestones of fictional space and other exploration; fictional and mythological vessels of space and other exploration; and fictional and mythological voyagers, travelers and explorers”.
The most popular one turned out to be SF movies, shows and books, and in this particular category, most of the naming suggests honor persons, places and spaceships from revolutionary movies, shows and books such Alien, Firefly, Doctor Who, and Lord Of The Rings.
But most of the suggestions were taken out of the Star Trek universe and Star Wars universe – Darth Vader, Mister Spock, Luke Skywalker, Captain James T. Kirk, Princess Leia.
It’s worth mentioning that some of the craters have already been assigned a name – Ripley (Alien), Serenity (Firefly), Tardis (Doctor Who), Princess Leia (Star Wars), Spock (Star Trek), and many others.
Image Source: i.ytimg.com
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.