Scientists handling NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft have named craters on Pluto’s largest moon Charon from the characters of the Star Wars and Star Trek franchises. New maps released by the team have names from the franchises of the craters and other features.

The maps have entries including the Vader Crater and the features being named after Luke Skywalker and Princess Leia from the Star Wars film series. To talk about Star Trek, the craters have been named after the first-generation characters like Capt. James T. Kirk, Mr. Spock, Sulu, and Uhura.

There are many features that have been named and many more are yet to be named on Pluto and Charon. Other personalities from science fiction include authors Arthur C. Clarke and Octavia Butler, both of them have craters named after them.

There are some chasms that have been named after fictional spaceships like Nostromo from the film Alien. New Horizons' flyby has unveiled that both Pluto and Charon have diverse surfaces. Therefore, there are many new features that are waiting to be named.

In contrast, features on Pluto are more grounded in reality. To cite an example, Pluto’s famous heart has been named after Clyde Tombaugh, the American astronomer who discovered the dwarf planet in 1930. There are many parts of Pluto that have been named after space missions like NASA's Viking, Pioneer and Voyager. The names have been decided with public help.