NASA unleashes nerds to name Pluto and Charon features

The recent spectacular NASA New Horizons space-probe images of dwarf planet Pluto and its largest moon, Charon, created an immediate need for names for their geographic features.

The International Astronomical Union suggests categories within which names can be suggested for its eventual approval, and those for Charon included "destinations and milestones of fictional space and other exploration; fictional and mythological vessels of space and other exploration; [and] fictional and mythological voyagers, travellers and explorers".

(For Saturn's moon Titan, the IAU gave the go-ahead to features named Bilbo and Frodo.) 

When NASA threw Charon naming suggestions open to the public, a nerd/geek blizzard of science-fiction pop-cultural references inundated the space agency responsible for New Horizons. (Nasa had already named Pluto's "heart" region the Tombaugh Regio, after discoverer Clyde Tombaugh, and two other areas of the former planet bear suggested names derived from the works of J.R.R. Tolkien and H.P. Lovecraft: the Balrog Macula and the Cthulhu Regio.)

Books, movies, and TV shows about fantasy and sci-fi dominated the proposed labels, including votes for persons and places from Star Wars, Star Trek, Alien, Doctor Who, Lord of the Rings, and even Firefly.

Craters named after Luke Skywalker and Princess Leia have been put forth (and there is, of course, a "Vader Crater"), as well as ones named Ripley, Kirk, Uhura, Spock, and Sulu. There are also the Tardis, Serenity, and Nostromo chasmas (long depressions in the crust) and the Mordor and Gallifrey maculae (dark areas).