Chance to submit names for Geography of Pluto and Charon ends this Friday

NASA gave a chance to public to name features on Pluto, like to help them name a mountain, or a crater on the Pluto's largest moon Charon. They have to do the submission until April 24.

NASA's New Horizons probe is going to reach orbit of Pluto and Charon, the dwarf planet's largest moon, and will be the first time that it will map them.

Once the data starts rolling in, names will be required, and the New Horizons Science Team will get into collaboration with the International Astronomical Union. It governs the appellations given to astronomical objects. The team has asked the public to nominate ideas and vote for their preferences here.

There are three categories for the nominated names, including The History of Exploration, The Literature of Exploration, and The Mythology of the Underworld.

Through the theme of The History of Exploration, the team wants to remember historic explorers, scientists and engineers, and space vehicles.

In the traditional nine planets, Pluto will be the last one to be imaged by an orbiting spacecraft. Pluto is a large and comparatively nearby member of the Kuiper Belt, which is a region of dwarf planets beyond the orbit of Neptune.

Another theme, The Literature of Exploration theme will honor fictional explorers, fictional points of origin and destinations, fictional ships of exploration, and the authors and artists behind them.

The third theme, The Mythology of the Underworld theme fits with the name of Pluto, which has come from the Roman god of the Underworld.

Pluto's name itself was the product of public suggestion. It was suggested by 11-year-old Venetia Burney to discoverer Clyde Tombaugh.

Tombaugh chose the name because its first two letters made his mind recall Percival Lowell, who had initiated the search for the so-called ninth planet.

The Underworld theme includes beings from the Underworld, the ones who have traveled to the Underworld, and names for the Underworld and its locales throughout human cultures.