Vulcan salute

The gesture was devised by Star Trek actor Leonard Nimoy as a salute for the alien Vulcan species, and is popular within the science fiction fandom and nerd culture.

[2][3] Others often greeted Nimoy with the Vulcan sign,[4] which became so well known that in June 2014 its emoji character was added to version 7 of the Unicode standard as U+1F596 🖖 RAISED HAND WITH PART BETWEEN MIDDLE AND RING FINGERS.

)[7] U.S. President Barack Obama referenced the Vulcan salutation in his statement on Nimoy's death, calling it "the universal sign for 'Live long and prosper'".

[8] The following day, NASA astronaut Terry W. Virts posted a photo on his Twitter feed from the International Space Station showing the salutation (with the Earth in the background) as the ISS passed over where Nimoy grew up – Boston, Massachusetts, United States.

[10] A Vulcan translation – "dif-tor heh smusma" – was introduced in the 1979 film Star Trek: The Motion Picture.

[18] In Trilby by George du Maurier, published in 1894, a description of an art student ends with the sentence, "May he live long and prosper!