Pluto's Moons Are Named-- And William Shatner Is Pissed: "Vulcan" Not Chosen Despite Landslide Win, Shatner Feels "Used For Promotional Purposes"

Pluto's five moons have now been named-and William Shatner got the shaft.  Star Trek fans everywhere are protesting that authorities didn't go with "Vulcan", the winning vote by a landslide. Instead, they're Kerberos and Styx

After Pluto's fourth and fifth moons were discovered in 2011 and 2012, the International Astronomical Union held open voting on what to name the planet/no-longer-a-planet.

At the time, Pluto's moons were dubbed P4 and P5. The winning vote went to Vulcan. The name was inspired by a viral tweet from William Shatner.

Shatner proposed naming Pluto's moon "Vulcan", and it garnered more than 170,00 votes.

But the people's voices were ignored. Trekkies everywhere are disappointed.

Rather than using Star Wars, the IAU named Pluto's moons using the second and third choices. Each of them received less than 100,000 votes.

Thus, P4 and P5 are now Kerberos and Styx. Star Trek fans and William Shatner are disappointed.

Shatner Tweeted,

"I think they used us for promotional purposes!" tweeted Shatner. "They're probably Star Wars fans! Where's [Princess Leia actress Carrie] Fisher?!!! She's been too quiet lately."

The name still followed the rules and came from classical mythology. Vulacan is also an ancient Roman god of fire and metalworking-Dr. Spock wasn't the first.

But the IAU said,

The name Vulcan had already been used for a hypothetical planet between Mercury and the Sun. Although this planet was found not to exist, the term "vulcanoid" remains attached to any asteroid existing inside the orbit of Mercury, and the name Vulcan could not be accepted for one of Pluto's satellites (also, Vulcan does not fit into the underworld mythological scheme).

Pluto's other known moons are dubbed Charon, Nyx, and Hydra. All are also characters from the ancient Greek mythological underworld.