Pluto’s two small moons have finally earned names that are a bit more memorable than P1 and P2. The International Astronomical Union has finally approved two names that were voted on by the public back in February 2012.

The BBC reports that Styx and Kerberos refer to elements from mythology. Kerberos is a three-headed dog, while Styx is the river that separates the living and the dead. (Sorry, fans of the rock band of the same name.)

However, those names actually finished in second and third place. The winner by a wide majority was Vulcan, which is a name in mythology, but more famously, the name of an alien race in Star Trek. According to Fox News, the IAU didn’t accept the entry since the name has already been used for other objects in astronomy. We can’t have too many Vulcans running around.

The two moons had been known as P1 and P2 since they were discovered in 2011 and 2012, respectively. Mark Showalter of the Seti Institute discovered them when his team was looking for rings around the dwarf planet.

“I was overwhelmed by the public response to the naming campaign,” Showalter said in a statement. “I am grateful to the IAU for giving such careful consideration to our suggestions.”

Pluto was considered the ninth planet of our solar system until 2006, when astronomers reclassified it as a dwarf planet.

image: Wikimedia Commons