Radiolab - Zoozve

Episode Date: January 26, 2024

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?Special Thanks to Larry Wasserman and everyone else at the Lowell Observatory, Rich Kremer and Marcelo Gleiser of Dartmouth College, 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 Nasserwith help from - Ekedi Fausther-Keeys Produced by - Sarah QariOriginal music and sound design contributed by - Sarah Qari and Jeremy Bloomwith mixing help from - Arianne WackFact-checking by - Diane Kelleyand Edited by  - Becca BresslerEPISODE CITATIONS - 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 here (https://zpr.io/Ci4B3sGWZ3xi).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 (https://zpr.io/kuBJYQAiCy7s).All the specs on our strange friend can be found here (https://zpr.io/Tzg2sHhAp2kb).Check out Liz Landau’s work at NASA's Curious Universe podcast https://zpr.io/QRbgZbMU2gWW) as well as lizlandau.comVideos:Fascinating little animation of a horseshoe orbit (https://zpr.io/A9y6qHhzZtpA), a tadpole orbit (https://zpr.io/4qBDbgumhLf2), and a quasi-moon orbit (https://zpr.io/xtLhwQFGZ4Eh). 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 (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. You're listening to Radio Lab. From WNYC. See?

Yep. I know nothing except one very weird word. That's right. Okay, so. Hey, this is Latif Nasser. And Lulu Miller. This is Radiolab. And today, I'm ready for your storywares.

We're going to start with a mystery about the universe that I stumbled across in my kid's bedroom. Hello. in my kid's bedroom. No. Okay, so about a year ago, I was putting my son to bed, my two-year-old son. You know that moment where it's like,

okay, it's time like I'm in the crib, right? Spike the football, run out of the room. Right, exactly. So as I was doing that, I like looked up to the adjacent wall at this poster that we have up. Kids' poster of the solar system. Real on brand for the Nasser match family. Yeah, very on brand.

And I would say it's a little bit more detailed than the average children's solar system poster, which is, you know, why my wife and I picked it in the first place. I get that. So anyway, I look at this poster, it's on the wall and I like notice something which is that Venus on this poster Venus had a moon And I was like that's weird. I Don't remember Venus having a moon, huh?

But like what do I know I don't remember Venus having a moon. Huh. But like, what do I know? I don't know. You know, right? So I put my kid to bed. Huh. So then I went back to my bedroom and then I just look up on my phone. Does Venus have a moon? Mm hmm.

And the first thing that comes up was a NASA website. And it says Venus does not have a moon. Oh, yeah. Okay. But then the next morning, after my son wakes up, was a NASA website and it says Venus does not have a moon. Oh, yeah. Okay. But then the next morning after my son wakes up, I look at the poster again and on the poster, Venus very much has a moon and not only does it have a moon,

the moon has a name. Okay. Wait, I'm actually gonna have you read it. Okay, one second. Okay, so I'm unrolling the poster here. Oh, oh, oh, it is in high detail. Right, okay, in here. Tell me what this moon is called.

Okay, I'm straining my eyes here. Zuz-veh? Zuz-veh? Yeah, Zuz-veh. Okay. When you see the name, I'm like, that's too weirdly specific to be an accident. Right.

That's not just like a poster designer being like, a little dot would look cute here. Like that's, it's labeled. Okay. Right. Okay. So then I started Googling Zeus V. It's a nice, Google-able word. It's a very Google-able word.

And there's, there's nothing. Like, like they were literally no results in English. What? The results were all in Czech. Huh. And they were about zoos. And I'm like, that's not the thing I'm looking for. Mm-hmm.

So, I was like, okay. Yeah. Where do I go from here? Uh, hi. Hey, Latif, how are you? I'm good. So I called up my friend. Her name is Liz. Where do I go from here? Hi. Hey, Latif, how are you? I'm good. So I called up my friend.

Her name is Liz, Liz Landau. It's just like a space nerd, but then also you as a professional space nerd. She has spent the last 10 years working with the media department at NASA. Oh. And before that, she used to be CNN's space correspondent. Okay. And so I told her, I showed her the poster. Zouzvé? Zouzvé. What? It's like supposed to be a moon for Venus. I've never heard of those. Okay. There are no moons of Venus, right? Right. Hmm.

So at this point the next logical step your signature is very cryptic. Yeah, I've changed it to just writing my name now. Was to track down the person who made the poster. Oh, oh good. Okay. Like I named Alex Foster. I'm gonna illustrate her and then I'll show you the poster. I'm gonna show you the poster. Oh, oh, good. Okay. A guy named Alex Foster. I'm an illustrator and I'm from Margate, which is like the southeast coast of the UK. And I was basically like, did you put Zoosvillian here as a joke? Like old map makers would make up fake town. Or like a little hidden signature or something? Or is it your dog's name? Or like a little hidden signature or something? Or is it your dog's name?

Um, no, no. Basically, I don't know, I don't know about this stuff. Like I wanted to make a solar system map, so I looked online and did a bit of research. He says he found a detailed list of all the moons online. And there it was. Z-double-O-Z-V-E. But then when I tried to find that same list, I couldn't find it.

I mean, I was like scouring the internet and nothing. Huh, weird. But then, around that same time, I got this text from Liz. So, in my head, because you had said, Zeusvei, I was like, oh, it's Zeusvei. It's Zeusvei. But then, I sort of like looked away from it's it's it's me. It's just me but then I Sort of like looked away from it and I looked at it again. Yeah, and I was like, what if what if it's not Z00Z what if it's 2002 and

So I just googled 2002 Vee and I found this object Which I did not know existed before. It's probably my writing as well. Like I've written all caps. I thought it must have been said rather than two. And so when I told Alex about the mix up, he realized he'd misread his own notes. And I thought the names, Who's they made more sense?

Anyway, okay, okay, so long story short there is a thing next to Venus and it is called 2002 V.E. It was discovered in 2002. That's why it's called 2002 V.E. 2002 V.E. 68 if you're being technical. yes, but it's not a moon of Venus So I thought that there was a simple answer to that But it turns out there isn't it's it's not a moon of Venus, but it's also not not a moon of Venus. Okay, because 2002 VE which I'm just gonna keep calling Zeus V is a mischievous, weirdo character that defies long-held rules of our solar system and upends, at least for me, the way I think about the entire universe.

Okay, so we humans first discovered ZeusVe thanks to a cultural moment of astronomical angst. March 23rd, 1989. In the late 80s, early 90s, a couple things happened. Millions go about their day, oblivious to the approaching global killer. First of all, this asteroid 4581 is cleapius. So scientists report that a huge asteroid had a close to it.

Came close. Mankind's scientists report that a huge asteroid had a close encounter. Came close. Mankind's closest encounter was a deadly asteroid. Around that same time, geologists find evidence in the Yucatan that it was an asteroid. A gigantic asteroid speeding object. That wiped out the dinosaurs. Then just a couple years later. A comet named Shoemaker-Levy-9 rained down on Jupiter. Scientists actually watched for the first time a comet smash into a planet. And before long, people's creeping sense of fear of what else might be out there...

Now we look to the skies for our nemesis. Turned into... Only a matter of time. An all-out asteroid. Frenzy. The comet we discovered is the size of New York City. In the 90s, you get asteroid blockbusters like Deep Impact, not to mention a horde of V-grade movies and TV, and all the while, people movie is very much based on fact. Could the latest sci-fi blockbuster become a fact? People keep spotting real life asteroids and comets.

The comet of the century, Ya Kutakke. The comet peeled off. Asteroid 1997, XF11. And the anxiety just compounds. If it had struck, it would have had the effect of 40,000 million. Nearly 2 million. 300 million. 500 million.

Hiroshima type bar 2028 that could be I lost I lost time on that Now imagine bundling up all of that fear and anxiety and plopping it On the desk of this guy. I mean, I actually have no formal training in astronomy, believe it or not. Really? Because that's basically what happens next.

I just have a BS in physics, which I just barely got. So this is Brian. I am Brian Schiff. He does in fact work in astronomy. That Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona. I am a research assistant. Apparently he's sort of like a legend over there. Like basically since the 70s, he's been there like every night and day and holidays and weekends.

Anyway, so back in the 90s, during all of that asteroid frenzy, Congress got concerned enough that it sent a mandate to astronomers all over, asking them to figure out what else is out there. And so Brian and his colleagues kicked off this brand new asteroid scavenger hunt. Is that how you pronounce it? Yeah, the Lowell Observatory Near Earth Object Search. NASA likes acronyms when you put in grant proposals. And what they did was we refurbished a wide field camera of a special kind

Essentially their job was to scan a substantial fraction of the sky every single night Hmm and what they were looking for were potentially hazardous asteroids what they call PHAs asteroids that could be the killer The killer. And it is in this nightly hunt that Brian discovers Zeusvei. Okay. It looks like an asteroid about the size of the Eiffel Tower.

Oh, okay. Imagine something kind of gray and pockmarked and potato shaped. And it's a PHA. Oh. Soon thereafter, people do a bunch of calculations about it and they're like it's technically within the range but it's very very unlikely to ever hit Earth. Yeah this is not one of those. Okay. So at that point, Zeus V seems so unremarkable that Brian kind of mentally crosses it off his list of things to worry about and I had no notion that I had even discovered it forgets about it entirely, huh? but fast forward a year and

Can you see my face I can see your face Zuzwe catches the attention of this other scientist in Finland. My name is pronounced simply Seppo, Mi-kola. Back in 2003, Seppo was an astronomer at the University of Turku, studying celestial mechanics. Basically, orbits. It was very simple, actually. Seppo says that when he first noticed Zuzwe, he realized it was in a very strange-looking situation.

As in, its orbit didn't really make sense. So, Sepboc calls up his colleague, whose name is Paul, Paul Wicker from Canada, whom I also called. Not huffing and puffing too much from coming up the stairs, and I think I'm good to go.

He's also an orbit-studying astronomer at the University of Western Ontario. Yes. And he says, in order to fully understand how weird Zoo's vase orbit is. Let me think about the best way to explain this. So, um... You have to understand this one fact about the solar system.

It's an ironclad rule of our solar system. That every celestial body moves in an orbit. And even though it can get gravitationally nudged around by other things near it, it primarily orbits one thing. And so the moons orbit planets, the planets orbit the Sun. Wait, but moons, doesn't a moon technically orbit the planet and the Sun? The answer is sort of technically, but we're actually talking about something different. What we're talking about is like a, it's almost like a primary partner, right? The Sun is pulling on everything in the solar system.

That's true. But moons, including ours, are much closer to their planets. So it's looping the planet. And that's what Paul says objects in our solar system generally do. Everything hula hoops one bigger thing. Yes.

Got it. Now, Seppo and Paul look at zoos Vey making careful Calculations computer simulations and so forth and what they find is it's being pulled around by the Sun's gravity So it orbits the Sun. That's its primary partner But weirdly even though it's orbiting the Sun Venus is also keeping this tiny gravitational tow hold on it and because of that Venus is also keeping this tiny gravitational toe hold on it. And because of that, while Zuzvay is going around the sun, it actually stays relatively close to Venus and loops around it.

It circles Venus too. To our amazement, it's orbiting both. So Zuzvay is like in a poly relationship with the sun and Venus? Yeah. Which, by the way, nobody has ever seen before. Revealing, if you will, the first quasi-moon known in our solar system. Quasi meaning just like a small moon? Quasi meaning neither moon nor not moon.

It's this mysterious in-between thing that's the first anyone has ever discovered anywhere in the universe. Quasi moon or Quasi moon, which one is correct pronunciation? When you say it, I like Quasi because it sounds like crazy. And it really is kind of crazy because Paul and Seppo realize its orbit. Takes it close both to the Earth and to the planet Mercury. It actually is quite a large distance from Venus at times. And not only that. I wonder where it came from.

Seppo actually computes Zeus's trajectory backwards in time. And I found that 7000 years ago. It was actually way closer to us. And we flung it away. And now it's off dancing with Venus. It's this free spirit, docy-doing around the solar system. So, like, what, Tiff? This is neat, but it does seem like just one sort of weird little pebble out there, ping-ponging

around in the whole solar system. Like, why? Why has it captured your attention? Why do you care about it so much? Okay, so much of it goes back to the poster, right? The map. In your kid's room. In my kid's room, but really, at least for me, in my head,

and I think kind of in all of our heads, the solar system diagram that we all see in school, and it's like you have the sun, and then you have all the planets, and it's like a beautiful, perfect circle inside a circle, inside a circle, inside a circle, inside a circle, and they all have like tracks, right? They're rails.

Right, and it's predictable. You can keep your watch by it. Totally. Like this is just Earth, this is the speed she goes. This is her rotation. So we're back here at this station, this time next year. Yeah, exactly. It's a clock.

We live in a clock, right? Right. And that's basically what scientists have thought of the solar system for millennia, right? Like, okay, so when I was in college, one of the things I studied was the history of astronomy. So you go back 2000 years, right? You have Aristotle and the Greeks. They were writing about perfect

crystalline spheres all nested one inside the other. And then 1500 years later, you have Copernicus and the whole scientific revolution. You move the sun to the center instead of the earth. The circles become ellipses. They're more like ovals. The planets get their own moons. Still, it's a new version of the clock. Everything is still moving in graceful, nested curves in predictable ways, right? And that's how I always envisioned everything moving up there.

Then Zuzwe doesn't seem to fit neatly within that system. It's a weirdo. It's a rule breaker. But don't you think Zuzwe's still operating within a bigger clock? Like it might still just be following different rules. Sure. There are rules. There are definitely rules. But the thing is, Zuzwe is following rules that we can never fully grasp. It's a three-way dancer, not a two-way dancer, so it's not on those predictable rails. And because of its

polyamorous relationship with the Sun and Venus, it actually presents sort of a mathematical conundrum known as the three-body problem. Three-body problem? Okay. Basically, the three-body problem is this idea that if you're tracking mathematically trying to predict and understand these two bodies that are circling one another or orbiting one another, their gravity is pulling on one another like the earth and the moon or the sun and the earth. That's totally doable. Very clear math you can do that.

Okay. When you literally add one other thing when there's three bodies, which is, uh, Zuzwe is a third body, right? All of a sudden the math becomes exponentially more difficult to the degree that mathematically it's impossible to show all of it. You just cannot calculate where Zuzay is going to go next. That is really counterintuitive. I would expect that that like the right physicists

or astronomers with the right math is like, okay, now you just also have sun pulling so it'll go. Right, you think it's like juggling balls. Like it's like juggling three balls is not that much harder than juggling two balls. Right. But this is like, literally once you add the third ball, it's like every mathematician drops all the balls.

It like becomes unknowable? Yeah, it's only possible to do it for a certain amount of time. It's like you can't predict it more than a little while out. Like for example, we know that Zuzwe is gonna leave Venus at some point. But we don't know what it's gonna do after that. It's a mystery. Okay, that is exciting. And by the way, Zuzwe is not the only unpredictable free spirit out there in the solar system.

It's just the beginning. Because since 2002, scientists have started finding lots more of these quasimoons. And these other quasimoons, some of them behave in even weirder ways than Zeus Veda. Huh, okay. There are the Jovian Trojan asteroids. Even though they're orbiting Jupiter they don't circle it. They actually stay ahead of or behind Jupiter as all of them go around the Sun. There's a group which always stay in front of it and another group which always stay behind it. Like secret service agents or something. Yeah, something like that. Then there are horseshoe quasi moons which look like they start out in front of the planet,

orbit part way around the planet, and then they stop and slow down, turn around, go back the other way. Wait, how do they stop and slow down and turn around? It's the planet's gravity that causes this advance and retreat motion. Weird. It's gonna get weirder here. There's some that do like a comma shape. Like back and forth. And those ones are called tadpoles. That's cute. And Earth has a bunch of quasi moons too. We do? How many have they found? There's at least like seven of them

I think. What? And all of these are all different like we have some Trojan moons, we have some horseshoe moons. Wow. And so now when I think of that same map, it's like it's full of all these weirdo characters all dancing around like a like a Fantasia, you know? Whoa, so it's not like we're not stuck in a clock. We're, we're, what, we're like, we're in a club? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly, exactly. It's like, it's not like we're not stuck in a clock. We're, what? We're in a club? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly, exactly. It's like Venus hooked up with this random asteroid at a club and they're dancing together.

But then at the end of the night, they're gonna part ways and who knows where they're gonna go next. Yeah, there's so much unknown. It's like you don't know who you're gonna dance with next. Right, and I would rather live in a club than in a clock Yes, you know, yeah, no I feel that and there's one more thing actually when I was talking to that Finnish scientist seppo

I asked him What he thought about Tuesday because I mean like like this is a guy who has spent his whole career mapping out where? Objects will go next in the solar system. Yeah, like building the clock. He's been a clock maker. That's right. And so I was like, okay, what do you feel about Zuzwe? How do you feel about the fact that Zuzwe is so unpredictable?

Nothing. So he was like, this is not a new idea. This is not a new thought for him. And in fact, he never really thought of the solar system as being knowable in the first place If I could predict everything then we would just believe that everything has been Determined but it's not predetermined because seppo says Zuzwe is just an exaggerated version of what he has already known Everything from gravity between them.

Everything in the universe is pulling on everything else. The three-body problem, it does apply to Zeus V, but it also applies everywhere, which means, you know, in the long term, everything is impossible to predict. Yeah, yeah, that's right, because very tiny things can change everything. If I do this with my finger.

So at some point, Seppo, he just picks up his finger and he starts waggling it side to side. Like scolding you? I had no idea what he was doing. And then he was like, look, just by doing that with my finger just now, I may have changed the Earth's orbit. I might have changed the Earth's orbit. Wait, and is that really, that's like, that's not just hubris dream thinking.

That's, that's like a astrophysicist who understands the forces of gravity saying I, I could have for real, real. Yeah. It becomes obvious after some billions of years, very tiny things affect everything when there is enough time. And for me, like for Zuzwe to enter my life in this totally random way, because some illustrator accidentally put it there and it ended up in my kids room and

then Zuzwe itself was this, you know, promiscuous rock star that let me in on this secret that this place we live in is Stranger and more connected and more filled with chaos and possibility than I ever thought like that's what I want And that's what I want my kid to go to bed thinking about every night. Okay, that is pretty beautiful. Yeah, right? That gave me the shintingles.

Zuzwe, right? Zuzwe, right. Go, Zuzwe. Okay, so Lulu, this was supposed to be the end of the story. It felt like an end. But it felt like three ends. But as I was reporting, this other possibility opened up. And I just could not, I could not resist.

It is a way to put Zeusve on the map for real. What do you mean? I'll explain after the map for real. Well, what do you mean? I'll explain after the break. Okay. Okay. How do you solve a problem like a Zeus V? How do you hold a moonbeam in your hand? You can't because gravity and we're gonna follow her.

Zeus V as she tells another whole in the universe and do a new possibility. Okay, continue. Okay. So this is Radio Lab. I'm Lutthip Nasser. I'm Lula Miller. Back to Zuzwe. So when I was talking to Paul Wieger, remember who's the guy who helped figure out

this was a quasiment. Yeah. He said this like one line, kind of not even what I was asking about, but like once he said it, I couldn't unhear it. All asteroids when they're first seen are given what's called a provisional designation. 2002 VE is just the name it got auto assigned

when it was discovered. Not its final name. Oh. An asteroid can be named only after it is considered to be sufficiently well studied and sufficiently well understood. And 2002 VE 68 is now at that point. Yes, but it has not yet been assigned one.

And it hit me like 2002 VE68 is a terrible name. It like sounds like a car serial number. It's like what if David Bowie was named 2002 VE68? It just doesn't feel right. Yeah, it's not the right name for this beautiful creature in the sky. I hear that. And that's when I got the idea that I, we have got to name it.

Wait, can you do that? Well, so I asked Paul, like, who's in charge of naming asteroids? The privilege of suggesting a name goes to the discoverer. It turns out that is me. So I went back to Brian Schiff, the guy who discovered Zeus Vey. In the early days, one was encouraged to be, you know, imaginative. He's discovered over 50 asteroids and has named a bunch of them. In the early 80s, we had four asteroids numbered consecutively.

We named them for the Beatles. I have the letter from Ringo thanking me for his asteroid. He told me about a bunch of other weirdly named asteroids. There's names of tropical flowers that a guy in Belgium was naming. There is a Swiss astronomer that named it for his favorite airline, which is Swiss Air. So random. An astronomer named one for his cat, Mr. Spock. Oh my god.

So the asteroid isn't named after the Star Trek character? Not named after the Star Trek character. Not named after the Star Trek character. Wow. And hearing him say all these names, like it just occurred to me, do you think it would be possible to actually name this thing Zuzfe? Oh my god, yes, yes. Yes, I guess that is possible. I mean, it has to be, you have to immortalize the typo.

It needs to be Zeusvei. It should be Zeusvei. It wants to be Zeusvei. There's no better name. Like even just for search engine optimization. Like there is nothing else called Zeusvei out there. It's not going to get confused with anything else. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So now theoretically you just have to like send a request to the powers that be, and then they will name it? Yes, yes. And you are thinking favorably of naming it Zuzve? Oh, I wouldn't think of that at all. Hahaha. You would not name it Zuzve? No. Um, but-

I think the answer is no. Hahaha. The answer is no? Okay, can I make a answer is no. The answer is no? Okay. Can I, can I make a case to you? And Lulu, as you know, I am nothing if not persistent. That's like my number one superpower. This is true.

So illustrator mistook 2002 for Zed. I tried to make the case and in the process I realized I actually, I had forgotten to tell Brian the whole story behind the name, Zuzve, like with the poster and everything. And when I did, Oh, Wow. It was a mistake.

Wow. It was a mistake. So he made an error, but I kind of fell in love with the error. Wow. Yep. That's kind of interesting. And there's nothing else in the whole world called Zuzve. Wow. Yeah. That's kind of interesting. And there's nothing else in the whole world called ZeusVe. ZeusVe.

Wow. Would you like to name this asteroid ZeusVe? It'd be interesting if the story of this mistake could be compressed down to 300 characters. Brian was like, okay, look, it's a great story and all, but in order to submit the form to request the name, everything you're telling me has to fit in 300 characters or less. Okay. Yeah.

I can write the heck out of those 300 characters. Can I write the heck out of those 300 characters and send it to you to send it? Yes. We could do that? Yeah, sure. That's enough of a little twist that that would be very interesting. Right? To see if it gets by the naming committee.

Wait, wait, naming committee? Yeah. So basically when Brian submits the name, it would then have to be reviewed by this group called the IAU. The International Astronomical Union. Those are the name keepers, name deciders. Yeah. Well, a committee under the IAU gets to do this.

It's called the Small Bodies Nomenclature Committee or something like that. Well, the official term is the Working Group Small Body Lomenclature, which is a bit of a mouthful. Yeah. So we normally just call it the WG-SBN. It's very cool what you do, but I do think maybe you need a better name. So this is Gareth Williams. He's an astronomer who worked at Harvard for many years and is the secretary of that working

group. Rumors that I'm an alien are not correct. I'm glad you clarified. I would typically work 100 plus hours a week. And so the rumor went around that I wasn't human. Anyway, so Gareth explained that the working group is responsible for naming asteroids and comets. And it's made up of 11 voting members

who are astronomers who live all over the world. We have a couple of members in the US. We have members in the Czech Republic, Russia, China, Japan, New Zealand, and Uruguay. As I understand it, it's their job to rubber stamp the name choice of the discoverer, who again is the one with the naming rights. Well, we don't call them naming rights. We call them naming privileges. Because if it's a right, they could argue, well, you can't tell me what I want to name it.

Right. Yes, we can because it's a privilege and we have to vet what you want to say. So I very quickly figured out that it's a lot more than just a rubber stamp and that Gareth and the entire working group take that vetting pretty seriously. We don't allow political or military names

unless the person, if it's a person. No names of products or companies. Are there like people wanting to name things after themselves? You can't do that. No names that are too generic. No names of pets. Mr. Spock caused a bit of controversy. Scientific animal names are okay though.

Right. No names that are acronyms. Yeah. No names longer than 16 characters. Yes. And there are lots more. Oh boy. But there was one rule in particular that stuck out to me as a potential problem. Yeah, any object that approached the Earth

closely should have a mythological name because no person should have an object that could hit us named for them. If for some reason that object did, you know, turn to Earth or destroy the space station or something like that, they don't want it all over the news that like 51054 Ellen DeGeneres, you know, was the cause of that or whatever. Right. Anyway, so only mythological names and even though there's no way Zoosvay is approaching us anytime soon, because it's within a certain range of earth it does fall under that rule. Oh. And are there ever exceptions to that rule? Not really. Okay. People try and say,

can I slide on this? No, you can't. If we let you slide, we'll have to let everybody slide, which makes a mockery of the rule. Oh, it's not looking good. Yeah, but still, I thought to myself, I convinced Brian, I could definitely convince Gareth. Some people are just very persistent. And does persistence pay off, divine? No. No. No, persistence just annoys me. Okay, interesting. Good to know.

Although I'm very, I maintain my cool. Okay. But internally I'm seething. Really? Oh my gosh. Okay. This is very good information to have. What if you are so out of luck? You're doomed. Maybe. But remember, he's just one person out of 11. Basically it's a majority vote. Okay. So hypothetically, how does one make their case to these 11 people? Do you all gather together to discuss the proposals in some marbled hall somewhere? Ah, marbled hall.

No, we don't have formal meetings. They do everything online. Any member of the working group can log in to the website through a special interface and vote on the names whenever they feel like it. Got it. Basically, I just became even more convinced that it all goes back to that, you know, that 300 character statement because that's what all the members of the working group are looking at when they cast their vote. Okay, so what did you end up writing?

Here is the sentence. Are you ready? Okay. So I actually did call Brian back to read it to him before he submitted it. Here it is. And it's actually, so the requirement he submitted it. Here it is. It's actually, so the requirement is 360 characters. And this is actually only 287 characters.

So we got even Gravey. If there's something you wanna add in there, like whatever. There's a room. Okay, here's what I got. As the first quasi-moon ever discovered in the universe, this object deserves a name as rare as its orbit. When artist Alex Foster drew this object on a solar system poster for kids,

he misread the temporary name 2002 V.E. as Zeusve, thus coining this original, odd, and memorable name. That sounds fine. Yeah? Oh yeah. Yeah, we might, you know, change kids to children and, you know, very minor things, but other than that.

Okay, great, easy, done. It sounds fine to me. Do you think they'll do it? What do you think is gonna happen? I guess I don't have a good feeling for that. Okay, so after that Brian Officially submitted the name proposal to the working group. Okay, and our sense was this kind of thing usually takes a couple months, right? That was about three and a half months ago It took every fiber of my being to not email Gareth a million times Yeah, you've got to sit on it on your hands

So you have to restrain your natural personality sitting on my hands locked up my keyboard Don't spook him. Yeah, totally, but then we scheduled my god. Are you about to are you about to tell okay? Okay, okay, keep going so we scheduled a time for when he would have the verdict. Hmm. Yep. I hear you Oh great I can hear you so we got on the phone for the moment of truth. Okay, let me just check my phone. Great. For the... I'm logged in on my phone to the voting site.

Okay. Let me just check... Let me just refresh the page. Oh my gosh, this is so dramatic. I'm like... I'm... I'm... I'm... Holding my breath here. I've got a sign in again. Oh... Gareth, you're killing me. All right, I have to log in again to the site.

Annoyingly sign in. And this time I will save the password. Save. This is cruel and unusual. Okay. As of yet, the decision on Zoo's V has not been finalized. Okay. Okay. It's not been finalized. Meaning we don't have a resolution as of yet.

Oh, okay. Wait, they still don't know? They're still waffling over there in the naming the Starsland committee? It's, there was, we're still waiting on two members to vote. committee. We're still waiting on two members to vote and I sent them both emails last night and this morning. Thank you, appreciate it. Well it turns out it turns out one of the people who hadn't voted yet had COVID, which is why they didn't vote. All right, you gotta send them some soup, okay? But in the soup, the alphabet letters

can only spell Zuzwe. Subliminal messaging here. You gotta send them a voicemail that forward says, but backward says, Zuzwe. Okay, what I did do instead was I just tried to get any information I could. Can you tell us where the vote tally is now? I can't give you numbers. Okay.

Was it close? I can't be more specific. Like needle any intel I could out of him. Have you already voted? Oh yes. Can you tell me what you voted? No, I can't okay. Okay. All right. No problem. Yeah, so we so basically we just have to wait. Oh Um, are you okay? I'm sorry. I'm sorry. You don't have an answer. I'm just patiently waiting on the edge of my seat

Not knowing what's ahead of you much like Zuzwe themselves. Okay, wait, but he did actually say one thing. Can you tell me if it's in which direction it's leaning? It's leaning for. Really? For Zuzwe? Yes. Hey!

Oh, Lodgett, that's good news. We're very close. Could go either way. Like any group, there's good news. We're very close. Could go either way. Like any group, there's a conservative wing, there's a liberal wing, and there's a middle of the road wing. Who are the two holdout votes? Where would you put them on the spectrum? Middle of the road.

Okay, huh, swing votes. Oh, they're the swing, oh gosh. Well, so what does that make you feel? I mean, it just opens it back up. It could go either way again, I don't know. Yeah. It's like vote counting on the Supreme Court, basically. Yeah, right.

So we'll just keep, we'll keep hoping. And when are we gonna find out? In a couple of weeks. I'll come back at you with an update. Okay, yes. Call me any time of day or night. I am now invested. This episode is reported by me, Latif Nasser, with help from Aketi Foster Keys. It was produced by Sara Kari.

Original music and sound design contributed by Sara Kari and Jeremy Bloom, with mixing help from Arianne Wack. Fact-checking by Diane Kelly and edited by Becca Bressler. Special thanks to Larry Wasserman and everyone else at the Lowell Observatory as well as to Rich Kramer. Thank you to the IAU and their small but mighty working group for Small Bodies Nomenclature as well as to the Bamboo Forest,

class of kindergarteners and first graders who also have small bodies. Liz Landau, who you will remember, cracked the 2002 V.E. Mystery. You can hear her work on NASA's Curious Universe podcast. Also wanted to give a special mention to illustrator Alex Foster, who gave us a bunch of those solar system posters.

They are beautiful and of course feature everyone's favorite Venus adjacent dot. The first 75 people to sign up for our annual membership program, the lab, will receive a free poster and I believe he even autographed them. You can sign up for that at radiolab.org slash join for existing lab members. Look out for a discount code in your exclusive feed Radio lab was created by Jad of bumrod and is edited by Soren Wheeler Lulu Miller and Latif Nasser are our co-hosts Dylan Keith is our director of sound design Our staff includes Simon Adler Jeremy Bloom Becca Bressler, Rachel Cusick,

Akati Faustra-Kees, W. Harry Fratuna, David Gable, Maria Paz Gutierrez, Sunju Nyanam Sambanan, Matt Kilty, Annie McEwen, Alex Neeson, Sara Akari, Alyssa Jung Perry, Sarah Sandbeck, Arian Wack, Pat Walters, and Molly Webster. Our fact checkers are Diane Kelly, Emily Krieger, and Natalie Middleton. Hi, this is Susanna calling from Washington, DC.

Leadership support for Radio Lab Science Programming is provided by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, Science Sandbox, a Simon Foundation initiative, and the John Templeton Foundation. Foundational support for Radiolab was provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.