If you need any proof that NASA fans are geeks of the highest order (and we mean that as the highest compliment, of course), all you need to do is look at the open call for name submissions that NASA ran in April to help name the features on Pluto and its orbiting bodies, which got submissions like Cthulhu, Balrog, Kirk and Spock.
The rules for naming such things are always set by International Astronomical Union (IAU) in Paris. In this case, they opened it up to names from mythology, science fiction and fantasy. For example, since Charon was the ferryman who took souls across the river Styx, names of features on Pluto's moon Charon will be drawn from mythical and fictional stories of travel and exploration. And as dwarf planet Ceres was a Roman goddess of agriculture and fertility, the IAU dictated that names of its features would come from "spirits and deities relating to agriculture from a variety of cultures," according to NASA.
The organization on July 28 released some stunning maps of Ceres, which is located in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter that has been getting examined by the Dawn spacecraft since March. The maps use color to differentiate the heights of various craters and peaks on the Ceres. (Previously we've mostly been admiring black and white photos of bright spots and pyramids.) The map below is also labeled with the names of the features that have now been approved by the IAU.
So we wind up with a 20-mile-wide (30-kilometer) crater named Haulani, a Hawaiian plant goddess; a 75-mile-wide (120-kilometer) and 3-mile (5-kilometer) deep crater named after Dantu, a Ghanaian god associated with the planting of corn; and Occator, the crater that contains Ceres' famous bright spots. Occator is the Roman god of harrowing, and was a helper of the goddess Ceres.
Along with the official names, NASA also released this animation of Ceres spinning in space, with its topography picked out with color coding, which makes it easier to imagine as a home for all those mythical crops and flowers.