Vulcan, Cerberus Win Online Poll of Naming Pluto's Moons

Vulcan and Cerberus are the clear winners of an online poll to name the most-recently discovered moons of Pluto.

An online ballot casting allowing the public to vote names for Pluto's two moons since Feb. 11 was closed Monday (Feb. 25) at 12 p.m. A total of 450,324 votes were cast in the last two weeks, with Vulcan fetching the most number of votes.

Vulcan was the clear winner of all the name contenders, getting 174,062 votes. Cerberus came in second, with nearly 100,000 votes, reports Space.com. The name Vulcan was proposed by Star Trek's William Shatner, who portrayed the role of Captain James T. Kirk in the science fiction television series.

"174,062 votes and Vulcan came out on top of the voting for the naming of Pluto's moons. Thank you to all who voted! MBB," wrote Shatner via Twitter.

Vulcan is the home planet of Kirk's alien-human hybrid first officer Spock in the TV series. It is also the name of the Roman god of lava and smoke. Although Vulcan and Cerberus won the majority of votes of all the other name contenders, it does not mean that the two small Pluto moons, currently called P4 and P5, will end up getting the names, the Space.com report said.

The names will be recommended to the International Astronomical Union, which will take the final call on naming the moons.

Pluto was first discovered in 1930 by an astronomer at the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff Arizona. It was known as the smallest planet in the solar system and the ninth planet from the sun. In 2006, the International Astronomical Union came up with a new definition of the word planet. Based on the new definition, Pluto was downgraded to a dwarf planet status.

As of now, Pluto has five moons. In 1978, astronomers discovered Pluto's largest moon Charon. Two other moons - Nix and Hydra - were discovered in 2005. P4 was discovered in 2011 and P5 in 2012 using the Hubble Telescope.