Leonard Nimoy tribute tweets mount

The tweets started piling up within moments after the news flashed around Twitter that Star Trek icon Leonard Nimoy died Friday, age 83.

They came from his friends, family and fans, famous and non-famous, and from his fellow actors in the TV sci-fi genre Star Trek helped create.

William Shatner, his longtime friend and fellow star of Star Trek, was among them.

Once again, Twitter served as a platform for mass mourning of a celebrity's passing. President Obama was among those saluting Nimoy — he said he "loved" Spock in one tweet — but scores of others did the same.

His granddaughter, Dani, took to TwitLonger to thank people for their good wishes and to promote donations to a foundation to fight chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Nimoy suffered from the disease.

Nimoy's Star Trek co-star George Takei bypassed Twitter's 140-character limit in favor of Facebook: "Today, the world lost a great man, and I lost a great friend. We return you now to the stars, Leonard. You taught us to "Live Long And Prosper," and you indeed did, friend. I shall miss you in so many, many ways."

Even NASA tweeted on the passing of the man who played Spock and made aliens seem, if not warm and fuzzy then at least a little less alien.

Tweeters couldn't resist quoting Spock's most famous line. Nimoy and the #LiveLongAndProsper hashtags started trending.

Others couldn't resist mixing up their sci-fi allusions to pay tribute to Nimoy.

Some of the more famous tweeters included:

Ben Stiller paid tribute on Instagram:

Steve Martin did the same on Twitter, as did Nathan Fillion:

JJ Abrams weighed in, too: