Zoozve | Radiolab Podcast

From the Radiolab podcast: A tiny detail on a kid’s solar system poster starts off a cosmic query about our place in the universe.
As co-host Latif Nasser was putting his kid to bed one night, he noticed something weird on a solar system poster up on the wall: Venus had a moon called Zoozve. But when he called NASA to ask them about it, they had never heard of Zoozve, and besides that, they insisted that Venus doesn’t have any moons. So begins a tiny mystery that leads to a newly discovered kind of object in our solar system, one that is simultaneously a moon, but also not a moon, and one that waltzes its way into asking one of the most profound questions about our universe: How predictable is it, really? And what does that mean for our place in it?
We have some exciting news! In this “Zoozve” episode, Radiolab named its first-ever quasi-moon, and now it's your turn! Radiolab has teamed up with the International Astronomical Union to launch a global naming contest for one of Earth’s quasi-moons. This is your chance to make your mark on the heavens. Submit your name ideas now through September, or vote on your favorites starting in November: radiolab.org/moon
Special Thanks to Larry Wasserman and everyone else at the Lowell Observatory; Rich Kremer and Marcelo Gleiser of Dartmouth College; and Benjamin Sharkey at the University of Maryland. Thanks to the IAU and their Working Group for Small Bodies Nomenclature, as well as to the Bamboo Forest class of kindergarteners and first graders.
Episode Credits:
Reported by Latif Nasser, with help from Ekedi Fausther-Keeys.
Produced by Sarah Qari.
Original music and sound design contributed by Sarah Qari and Jeremy Bloom, with mixing help from Arianne Wack.
Fact-checking by Diane Kelley.
Edited by Becca Bressler.
Articles:
Check out the paper by Seppo Mikkola, Paul Wiegert (whose voices are in the episode) along with colleagues Kimmo Innanen and Ramon Brasser describing this new type of object: academic.oup.com/mnras/articl...
The Official Rules and Guidelines for Naming Non-Cometary Small Solar-System Bodies from the IAU Working Group on Small Body Nomenclature can be found here: www.wgsbn-iau.org/documentati...
All the specs on our strange friend can be found here:ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/tools/sbdb_l...
Check out Liz Landau’s work at NASA's Curious Universe podcast: www.nasa.gov/podcasts/curious...
As well as www.lizlandau.com
Videos:
Fascinating little animation of a horseshoe orbit: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horsesh...
A tadpole orbit: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horsesh...
And a quasi-moon orbit: upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...
Posters:
If you’d like to buy (or even just look at) Alex Foster’s Solar System poster (featuring Zoozve of course), check it out here: www.alex-foster.com/shop/p/so...
The first 75 new annual sign-ups to our membership program, The Lab, get one free, autographed by Alex! Existing members of The Lab, look out for a discount code!
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Photo illustration by Jared Bartman
Video by W. Harry Fortuna

[@ParaREZX]

Such an amazing story😊

[@g8r10r2]

I can't believe you ended the episode like that! It's probably genius.

[@CasIsCuriousAboutScience]

2002VE(68):*exists*
Latif: Is this Zoozve?

[@boreduser12]

Loved it. Keep up the great work Lulu and Latif. I'm really enjoying radiolab as much as always. The quality of the show remains as great as ever.

[@ShadowWizard123]

This was very enjoyable, thanks so much!

[@Dorie6947]

Totally enjoyable

[@chrismarquardt]

❤

[@bennguyen1313]

Great summary at the 33m40s mark! BTW, on the EconTalk episode with Brian Klaas (Fluke), they discuss radical uncertainty.

[@michaelciampa1411]

I thought Europa was a moon of Venus and it had an ocean

[@LegoJJ]

Europa is a moon of Jupiter I believe, maybe Neptune? But pretty sure jupiter

[@EducatedSkeptic]

@@LegoJJ --- Ayuh, a moon of Jupiter: science.nasa.gov/jupiter/moons/europa/ .

[@VirgoShelter]

​@@LegoJJYeah Jupiter

[@nothingishere1559]

Please someone explain me what is going on 😭 what the hell is 'Zoozve'

[@EducatedSkeptic]

Did you not listen to the actual podcast? This was explained VERY early on. It's really 2002VE - as in 2002VE68 - see en.wikipedia.org/wiki/524522_Zoozve .......

[@MongoosePreservationSociety]

Ive been following this story elsewhere, but i forgot how unbearable radiolab is. Damn