‘Star Wars’ and ‘Star Trek’ collide on Pluto’s moon Charon

‘Star Wars’ and ‘Star Trek’ collide on Pluto’s moon Charon

The legendary sci-fi classics are making their permanent mark on the surface of Charon thanks to NASA's New Horizon's spacecraft.

The debate between Star Trek and Star Wars continues to this day, and now NASA is making the two popular sci-fi franchises even share the same piece of space rock: Pluto’s moon Charon.

NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft has been sending data back to Earth ever since flying near Pluto, Charon, and the other moons recently, and it has found that these dwarf planets and its moon has a lot more features than thought — features that have to be made, so why not after science fiction? As a result, a significant portion of Charon craters have been named after characters from both Star Trek and Star Wars, according to a Discovery News report.

NASA has been amazing the scientific community — and the world — with stunning shots of Pluto with the New Horizons spacecraft during a recent flyby. Over the next few months, it will continue to send data all the way back to Earth. But the New Horizons team wanted to name the many craters found on the surface of Charon — so, thanks to them, there is now the Vader Crater, as well as numerous other features named for characters like Luke Skywalker and Princess Leia from Star Wars. These have been indicated on recent maps that were released by the New Horizons crew.

Star Trek fans need not worry: Capt. James T. Kirk, captain of the starship Enterprise from the original series, has his own crater as well, as do Spock, Unhura, and Sulu.

Scientists are surprised that there would be many features to name, but the New Horizons spacecraft has proved that the surfaces of Pluto and Charon are incredible complex and dynamic, with lots of craters and other features that scientists weren’t expecting to see.

And other sci-fi franchises got their names on Charon: a 750-mile-wide chasm has been named after Nostromo, which is the spacecraft from the 1979 film Alien. Other craters have been named for sci-fi authors.

On Pluto, the features were typically named after real-life explorers. However, NASA engineers couldn’t resist naming one after the Balrog from the Lord of the Rings.

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