Star Trek: NASA Names Constellation After the Enterprise

Star Trek's USS Enterprise has been honored for all of its journeys through space with a new constellation recognized by NASA.

The Enterprise is one of 21 new constellations named in honor of the 10th anniversary of NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope. Since these constellations can only be seen through the use of gamma rays, most of their names are somehow linked to gamma radiation, including several taken from popular culture such as the Hulk, Godzilla, the TARDIS, and yes, the Starship Enterprise.

"The engines of the most famous vessel in the Star Trek universe, the USS Enterprise, are powered by the annihilation of matter and antimatter, a process that produces energy in the form of gamma rays. More than half the gamma-ray sources cataloged by the Fermi mission come from a different type of engine — supermassive black holes in the cores of distant galaxies."

The USS Enterprise was the vessel of Captain James T. Kirk during his five-year Starfleet mission of exploration in Star Trek: The Original Series. The ship got a slight redesign and was introduced into the prequel Star Trek: Discovery at the end of CBS All Access series' first season. Discovery co-creator and showrunner previously discussed what the ship's role in the upcoming second season of Star Trek: Discovery would be.

"The show is called Discovery. It's not Enterprise," Kurtzman said. "So yes, the Enterprise will play a part of Season Two but it will absolutely not overshadow Discovery. And I think with Enterprise's arrival in the finale we recognize that the audience has a lot of questions about our synchronicity with the original series, which really means or synchronicity with canon. So the promise of the Enterprise holds the answers to a lot of those questions, including Spock's relationship with his half-sister who he's never mentioned. Which does not necessarily mean you're going to see Spock, just that we owe an answer to that question.

"Season One was really about the war and how the war-tested our ideals as Starfleet. It was very much about Michael's story arc and her getting comfortable on Discovery. Fundamentally, it was really about bringing that crew together as a family. If you look at the crew in the beginning, they're very separate and they're not really connected yet. They are not sure of each other and their place on the ship. Over the course of the season, they really become a family."

The first season of Star Trek: Discovery is available to stream in its entirety on CBS All Access in the U.S., through CraveTV in Canada and through Netflix in other international markets.

Star Trek: Discovery Season Two is now filming in Toronto and will premiere in early 2019.