Radiolab - Breaking Newsve About Zoozve

Episode Date: February 5, 2024

Less than two weeks since we released Zoozve, and we have BIG NEWS about our quest to name the first-ever quasi-moon! And that’s only the half of it! Listen to the episode “Zoozve” before you listen to this update! (https://radiolab.org/podcast/zoozve)EPISODE CREDITS -Reported by - Latif Nasserwith help from - Ekedi Fausther-KeeysProduced by - Sarah QariOriginal music and sound design contributed by - Sarah Qariwith mixing help from - Arianne WackFact-checking by - Diane Kelleyand Edited by  - Becca BresslerEPISODE CITATIONS - Official announcement about Zoozve is available here! (https://www.wgsbn-iau.org/files/Bulletins/V004/WGSBNBull_V004_002.pdf) If you’d like to see or sign up for the official asteroid naming bulletin that comes from the International Astronomical Union’s Working Group for Small Bodies Nomenclature, you can do so here (https://www.wgsbn-iau.org/).  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 (https://zpr.io/dcqVEgHP43SJ). 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!Our newsletter comes out every Wednesday. It includes short essays, recommendations, and details about other ways to interact with the show. Sign up (https://radiolab.org/newsletter)!Radiolab is supported by listeners like you. Support Radiolab by becoming a member of The Lab (https://members.radiolab.org/) today.Follow our show on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook @radiolab, and share your thoughts with us by emailing [e-mail] support for Radiolab’s science programming is provided by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, Science Sandbox, a Simons Foundation Initiative, and the John Templeton Foundation. Foundational support for Radiolab was provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.

Oh wait, you're listening. Okay. Alright. Okay. Alright. Door listening to Radio Lab. Radio Lab. From WNYC.

The Seas. The Seas. Yep. No small talk, what are we here for? Okay, okay, okay, okay. Hey, it's Loveth. I'm Lulu. This is Radio Lab and Lulu. Wait, are we here for news?

So we are here for news. Okay. So as you know, I have to do the- Do the, do the. Previously on- Okay, you want me to do it? Sure, yeah, you do, sure, sure, sure. Okay, so last week we did a crowd-pleasing episode about-

What is that word? Is that Z-O-O-Z-V-E? Zouzvet? Zouzvet? Zouzvet? Zouzvet. Zouzvet. Wow.

Zouzvet. If you did not listen, I would actually hit pause right now. Go listen to that first, because there are some pretty big spoilers coming. So basically, Zuzwe is this mischievous piece of space rock that is neither moon, nor not moon,

that is orbiting Venus and the sun, which makes it dance in all these wild and beautiful and different ways, and also means that we don't know where it's going, which gives you this giant thrill that maybe we're not stuck in a clock where everything is ordered and known in the cosmos. It's more like a club where there's possibility

and it tears a hole in your heart and it doesn't actually have a name yet. Excellent. Thank you. And so given that this was the first discovered of an entirely new kind of thing in our solar system And it's called 2002 VE 68 like it needs a better name and of course the natural name felt like it should be Zeus had to be was destined. Yeah, so we put in a proposal to this sort of all powerful working group for small bodies nomenclature

of the International Astronomical Union, which is like... They're the guardians of the galaxy. Yeah, basically. They were about to take a vote. And when we released the episode, the secretary of that working group, Gareth Williams, had told us... We don't have a resolution as of yet. Okay.

We're still waiting on two members to vote. But actually... Left, right. Hello? I can hear you. Can you hear me? But now, little over a week later, just got off the phone with Gareth. Oh, okay. Votes are all in?

Votes are all in. Okay. And... Well, I'm very pleased to announce that the working groups will body in the magnitude has approved the name, Zeus V. Oh, my God. Are you serious? Wow.

Are you serious? Yeah. They're naming it Zeus V. Oh, wow. Great. I also just broke the news to Brian Schiff, the discoverer of Zoosvay who helped us propose the name. Well, that's a great little coup on everyone's part.

And... Oh, good. That's so cool. Yeah. I also called Alex Foster. A poster guy? A poster guy to be like... Oh!

Like your mistake is now etched in the heavens forever. Yeah. Oh. Now, having gone through what we went through, that retroactively makes the poster correct. That's amazing. Wow. How do you feel? I mean, I feel awesome.

Like, it's like, I don't know. It's the first thing like it that we ever found. And now it has a weird one-of-a-kind name. So that feels right. How do you feel? I feel happy. I think it's a good name. Can you tell me what you voted? Well, since it's now been approved, I can say that I voted for it. I just want to give you a big hug right now.

A virtual hug will have to be since we're quite a few miles apart. Yes, yes. Oh my god. Wait, but wasn't there like that it had to be a myth? How did it get past that rule? The mythological rule. Yeah, so. That was the sticking point for the people that voted against it.

I mean, he doesn't know exactly why everyone voted, but he thinks we did get like no votes because of that rule. But he also said that. There are circumstances under which non-mythological names would be accepted if there's a good reason why. Really?

I didn't know that. And the cute story behind this name, I think, swayed the members who voted for it. Yes! But we don't want to encourage, you know, a lot of non-mythological names. And in the end, he says, it's sort of just scraped by. Is this they passed by a narrow margin? Has anything ever been named after a typo before? Mmm, after a typo.

Oh, that's an interesting one. I'm having a hard time thinking of a prior example of a typo. You is. I can't think of anything right off hand either. Ha ha ha. Wow. That is wild. You is. I can't think of anything right off hand either. Wow. That is wild. This funny little thing you like squinted at, this typo that a poster designer put on a piece of paper that reached your eye that then led you on this whole chase, like that that is now immortalized and will outlast all of us in the sky.

Right and and to me I think what's kind of beautiful about that is something that started to dawn on me as I was talking to Brian Schiff. Both Seppo Mikola and Paul Wiegert did the real work of course identifying this thing. I was trying to sort of you know give him his flowers for starting us off on this whole journey but he wouldn't take them. I hope people get the idea that, you know, people do their little bits and pieces incrementally and, you know, it works out. Well, it sounds like astronomy is a team sport.

And then when I was talking to Alex Foster... It's the weirdest thing because it feels like my part in this is so small. He did the same thing. It was just an accident. It's like so silly that this could happen. I feel like I didn't do anything. Like what did I do? I did a tiny thing here.

And the thing that finally hit me is that each of us was sort of stepping back to see ourselves as just one little ripple in the like butterfly effect that you just described, where one seemingly insignificant thing led to another, led to another, led to another. And to me, that's kind of a microcosm of the world that Zeus Vey lives in, right, where bodies move through space and exert a web of invisible and often unknowable forces on each other, leading to a universe where things happen that you just cannot predict. Wow. But, okay, so that's actually only half of the news.

Okay, what's the other half? So it was so fun. It was so exciting to name Equasi-Moon of Venus. This whole time we've also been working and lobbying the same people, the International Astronomical Union, to basically open up fan submissions to name Equasiimune of Earth.

Oh, no. So we're gonna do a contest. No. We're gonna do an international astronomical union, radio lab, fan contest. So that listeners can name a Quasimune? That listeners can do it too. So we did it.

I want everybody to be able to do this. And not even just for Venus. This is now one of ours. This is Earth. Oh my goodness, wait, this is awesome. Yeah. And this isn't one of those companies that's like, name a star after your sweetheart for Valentine's Day

for $29.99 and then you're like, baby, it's named Marty. It is not that. Okay. Although if you do want to send me $29.99, I'm happy to take it. No, this is not that. Although if you do want to send me 29.99, I'm happy to take it. No, this is for real. So the caveats are like,

we're still working out the details with them. We don't know what quasi-moon it's gonna be or how the naming exactly is gonna work. And because this is like a big official deal, it's gonna take a little while to get the whole thing going. But what we do know is that it's gonna need to have a mythological name, whatever that means. Okay, but any culture, any myth?

Any culture, any time. They've even used like mythology from Lord of the Rings. Okay, so kind of broad definition of myth. Yeah. Okay, great. And so we're gonna announce all the details later, but part of the reason I wanted to announce it so that people kind of think up

some good mythological inspired names and work on like a 300 character explanation. Yes, oh my gosh. So like if you out there, whether you are a school kid or whether you are a grown up who has never paid attention to astronomy in their whole life until right now Or maybe this is the thing you think about every day

Whatever whoever you are. This is a pretty rare thing. They don't do this kind of fan contest very often and Anybody can help label this thing in the sky. How fun. Yeah. Yeah, right? That's really rad, that's great. And well you had the idea just to get people's juices flowing when we were trying to name Zuzwe, you had the idea, I don't think it works as not quite mythological, your idea was- Quasimundo.

Quasimundo, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Which I think is pretty good. It's not bad, but they can do better. There you go, there's the bad idea to make you feel safe with your submission. Quasimundo. Quasimundo.

I cannot wait to read people's ideas and their justifications. Oh my God, I'm so excited. Yeah. There's going to be some good stuff in there. Yeah. Well, bravo. That is some good news. That it?

You got any more tricks up your sleeve? That's it. Okay. That's it. Okay. Nothing more. That it? You got any more tricks up your sleeve? That's it. Okay. That's it. Okay. Nothing more. That's it. Well, thanks for listening.

Hang on in just a couple of days. We'll have a brand new Radio Lab episode for you right here in this very feed. So check back in. Thanks for listening. Bye. Bye, Zuzve. Bye.

Bye, Zuzve. Bye. All this newsve about Zuzve was reported by me, Lativ Nasser, with help from McKeddy Foster Keys. It was produced by Sarakari, with original music and sound design by Sarakari, mixing help from Arianne Wack, fact checking by Diane Kelly, and edited by Becca Bressler. Dream big, everybody. Anything is possible. Hi, I'm Hazel, and I'm from Silver Spring.

Radio Lab was created by Jada Belmatt, and is edited by Sword Wheeler. Lulu Miller and Latif Nasser are co-hosts. Dylan Keith is our director of sound design. Our staff includes Simon Adler, Jeremy Bloom, Becca Bressler, Ikehti Foster-Keese, W. Harry Fortuna, David Gable, Maria Paz Poteatis, Sindhu Naimisam Fadan, Matt Kilti, Annie Makuwan, Alex Nisen, Sarah Kari, Sarah Sandbach,

Arianne Wack, Pat Walters, and Molly Webster. Our fat trackers are Diane Kelly, Emily Krueger, and Natalie Middleton. Thank you. Hi, I'm Luis Vera, and I'm calling from Mexico City. Leadership support for Radio Lab Science Programming is provided by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, Science Sandbox, the Simon Foundation Initiative and the John Tempital Foundation.

Foundation support for Radio Lab was provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.