Say "Zoozve" Five Times Fast

Nicole Assante

Professor Horgan

HST 401 – A

7 Feb. 2024

Say “Zoozve” Five Times Fast

              One thing that marvels me about the universe is the sheer faultlessness of it. From the concentric orbit of the planets around the sun to the balanced chemical processes that occur in our bodies, it seems as though everything is in perfect balance. Christopher Search, a Professor of Physics at Stevens Institute of Technology, describes the universe as having an “elegant mathematical framework”. This is true for most things, that is, until something comes in and sets the balance askew.

              Upon studying his 2-year-old’s solar system poster while putting him to sleep, Latif Nasser, host of the Radiolab podcast, noticed something odd. Venus had a moon. But even NASA’s own website says that “Venus has no moons”. It is popularly known as only 1 of 2 planets, including Mercury, that do not have any moons. Venus’ moon, “Zoozve”, sat right alongside Venus in a bright blue banner.

              Perplexed by this, Nasser contacted a friend. Liz Landua, an employee at the media department at NASA, was as equally as perplexed by the addition of the moon on the poster. To solve this solar system stumper, Nasser reached out to the illustrator of the poster, Alex Foster. Adamantly, Foster said he found a “detailed list of moons online, and there it was”. When trying to find the same list, Nasser hit another roadblock. There was no evidence of this moon. That was until Liz Landua solved the mystery. Zoozve wasn’t the name at all, it was 2002-VE. 2002 comes from the year the moon was discovered and VE comes from the order in which it was found.

The moon, which isn’t technically a moon, was discovered out of an asteroid craze in the early ‘90s. Following the collision of comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 into the surface of Jupiter, a collision equivalent to 300 million atomic bombs, U.S. Congress wanted to know everything about what the solar system held. Thus, it mandated astronomers to find every entity space had to hold. Research assistant at the Lowell Observatory, Brian Skiff, discovered Zoozve. However, after many calculations, it was determined that it would never hit Earth, and then forgotten. That was until astronomer at University of Turku, Seppo Mikkola, realized the true perplexity of 2002-VE.

The whole idea of the solar system is that celestial bodies move in an orbit around mainly one object. Paul Wiegert, an astronomer at the University of Western Ontario, says that “moons orbit planets, the planets orbit the Sun”. Simply put, the planet orbits the Sun and the moon orbits the planet. However, to scientist’s astonishment, Zoozve primarily orbits the Sun, but is also in the gravitational reach of Venus. Thus, Zoozve orbits both the Sun and Venus, which has never been seen before, or as Wiegart puts it “the first quasi-moon known in our solar system”.

In astrophysics and cosmology, almost everything can be described by mathematical formulas. Every planet in the solar system has a predictable orbit around the sun, a bunch of nested circles. Zoozve on the other hand, presents an interesting enigma to astrophysicists. It presents the “three body problem”. The three-body problem, simply put, states that when there are three bodies it is nearly impossible to predict the path of the third body. In this case, Zoozve is the third body, next to the Sun and Venus and according to Seppo Mikkola, “mathematically, it’s impossible to follow it”.

The idea of quasi-moons has become more mainstream since the discovery of 2002-VE. For example, there are categorized paths of moons, such as trojans, horseshoes, and tadpoles. All of which do not solely orbit the sun and a planet. Instead, they make almost full orbits, or bounce between the gravitational pulls of planets. Even Earth has two identified quasi-moons.

It is near impossible to be able to mathematically describe every phenomenon that presents itself. The universe itself is unpredictable. The discovery of Zoozve is one of the many marvels of space. It undermines modern-day science’s unceasing attempt to put an explanation to everything. In the end, Zoozve is a rebel who defies the idea of a “perfect universe”.



Works Cited

“(524522) 2002 VE68 #DIEVA.” YouTube, YouTube, 31 July 2022, www.youtube.com/watch?v=gz6ydkMn7xQ&t=15s.

“Moons: Facts - NASA Science.” NASA, NASA, science.nasa.gov/solar-system/moons/facts/. Accessed 5 Feb. 2024.

Nassar, Latif. “Zoozve.” Radiolab, WNYC Studios, 26 Jan. 2024.

“P/Shoemaker-Levy 9 - NASA Science.” NASA, NASA, science.nasa.gov/solar-system/comets/p-shoemaker-levy-9/. Accessed 5 Feb. 2024.

“Three Body Problem.” Three Body Problem - an Overview | ScienceDirect Topics, www.sciencedirect.com/topics/physics-and-astronomy/three-body-problem#:~:text=The%20three%2Dbody%20problem%20describes,the%20influence%20of%20the%20Sun. Accessed 5 Feb. 2024.

“Venus: Facts - NASA Science.” NASA, NASA, science.nasa.gov/venus/facts/. Accessed 5 Feb. 2024.

  

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