Jan 26, 2024
Transcript
[RADIOLAB INTRO]
LATIF NASSER: [yawns]
LULU MILLER: I know nothing, except one very weird word.
LATIF: That's right. Okay, so ...
LATIF: Hey, this is Latif Nasser.
LULU: And Lulu Miller.
LATIF: This is Radiolab and today ...
LATIF: All right.
LULU: I'm ready for your story wares.
LATIF: ... we're gonna start with a mystery about the universe that I stumbled across in my kid's bedroom.
LULU: Oh!
LATIF: 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—boop, in the crib, right?
LULU: Spike the football, run out of the room. [laughs]
LATIF: Right. Exactly. So as I was doing that I, like, looked up to the adjacent wall at this poster that we have up, a kid's poster of the solar system.
LULU: Real on-brand for the Nasser-Mensch family.
LATIF: Yeah, very on brand.
LULU: [laughs]
LATIF: 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.
LULU: I get that.
LATIF: 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."
LULU: Huh.
LATIF: But, like, what do I know? I don't know. You know?
LULU: Right.
LATIF: So I put my kid to bed.
LULU: Huh.
LATIF: So then I went back to my bedroom and then I just look up on my phone, does Venus have a moon?
LULU: Mm-hmm?
LATIF: And the first thing that comes up was a NASA website, and it says, "Venus does not have a moon."
LULU: Oh!
LATIF: Yeah.
LULU: Okay.
LATIF: 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.
LULU: Okay.
LATIF: Wait, I'm actually gonna have you read it. Okay, one second. Okay, so I'm unrolling the poster here.
LULU: Oh! Oh, it is in high detail.
LATIF: Right. Okay, and here: tell me what this moon is called.
LULU: Okay. I'm straining my eyes here. Zoozve? Zoozve?
LATIF: Yeah, Zoozve.
LULU: [laughs] Okay.
LATIF: When you see the name, I'm like, that's too weirdly specific to be an accident.
LULU: Right. That's not just like a poster designer being like, "A little dot would look cute here."
LATIF: Right.
LULU: Like, it's labeled. Okay.
LATIF: Right. Okay, so then I started googling Zoozve.
LULU: It's a nice googleable word.
LATIF: It's a very googleable word. And there's—there's nothing. Like, there were literally no results in English.
LULU: What?
LATIF: The results were all in Czech.
LULU: Huh.
LATIF: And they were about zoos. And I'm like, that's not the thing I'm looking for.
LULU: Mm-hmm.
LATIF: So I was like, okay where do I go from here?
LULU: Yeah.
LATIF: Hi.
LIZ LANDAU: Hey, Latif. How are you?
LATIF: I'm good. How are you?
LATIF: So I called up my friend. Her name is Liz, Liz Landau.
LATIF: As just like a space nerd, but then also you as a professional space nerd.
LATIF: She has spent the last 10 years working with the media department at NASA.
LULU: Oh!
LATIF: And before that she used to be CNN's space correspondent.
LULU: Okay.
LATIF: And so I told her, I showed her the poster.
LIZ LANDAU: Duvet?
LATIF: Zoozve.
LIZ LANDAU: What? [laughs]
LATIF: It's, like, supposed to be a moon for Venus.
LIZ LANDAU: I've never heard of this.
LATIF: Okay. There are no moons of Venus, right?
LIZ LANDAU: Right.
LULU: Hmm!
LATIF: So at this point, the next logical step ...
LATIF: Your signature is very cryptic.
ALEX FOSTER: Yeah, I've changed it to just writing my name now, because ...
LATIF: ... was to track down the person who made the poster.
LULU: Oh. Oh, good. Okay.
LATIF: A guy named Alex Foster.
ALEX FOSTER: I'm an illustrator, and I'm from Margate, which is, like, the southeast coast of the UK.
LATIF: And I was basically like, "Did you put Zoozve on here as a joke?"
LATIF: Like, old mapmakers would make up fake towns.
LATIF: Or like a little hidden signature or something? Or is it your dog's name?
ALEX FOSTER: 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.
LATIF: He says he found a detailed list of all the moons online, and there it was.
ALEX FOSTER: Z-O-O-Z-V-E.
LATIF: 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.
LULU: Huh! Weird!
LATIF: But then around that same time, I got this text from Liz.
LIZ LANDAU: So in my head, because you had said Zoozve ...
LATIF: Zoozve.
LIZ LANDAU: ... I was like, "Oh, it's Zoozve."
LATIF: It's Zoozve.
LIZ LANDAU: But then I sort of like, looked away for a minute and I looked at it again, and I was like, what if—what if it's not Z-O-O-Z, what if it's 2002? And so I just googled "2002-VE," and I found this object.
LATIF: What?
LULU: Oh!
LIZ LANDAU: Which I did not know existed before.
LULU: Okay. [laughs]
ALEX FOSTER: It's probably my writing as well. Like, I write in all caps. I thought it must have been "Z" rather than "2."
LATIF: And so when I told Alex about the mix-up, he realized he'd misread his own notes.
ALEX FOSTER: And I thought that the name "Zoozve" made more sense. [laughs]
LULU: [laughs]
LATIF: So anyway, okay, okay ...
LATIF: So long story short, there is a thing next to Venus, and it is called 2002-VE.
LIZ LANDAU: It was discovered in 2002. That's why it's called 2002-VE.
LATIF: 2002-VE68, if you're being technical.
LIZ LANDAU: Yes.
LULU: But it's not a moon of Venus?
LATIF: So I thought that there was a simple answer to that, but it turns out there isn't. It's not a moon of Venus, but it's also not not a moon of Venus.
LULU: Okay.
LATIF: Because 2002-VE—which I'm just gonna keep calling Zoozve—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 Zoozve thanks to a cultural moment of astronomical angst.
[NEWS CLIP: March 23, 1989 ...]
LATIF: In the late '80s/early '90s, a couple things happened.
[NEWS CLIP: Billions go about their day, oblivious to the approaching global killer.]
LATIF: First of all, this asteroid, 4581 Asclepius ...
[NEWS CLIP: NASA scientists report that a huge asteroid had a close call with Earth.]
LATIF: ... came close.
[NEWS CLIP: Mankind's closest encounter with a deadly asteroid.]
LATIF: Around that same time, geologists find evidence in the Yucatan that it was an asteroid ...
[NEWS CLIP: A gigantic asteroid ...]
[NEWS CLIP: A speeding object ...]
LATIF: ... that wiped out the dinosaurs. Then just a couple years later ...
[NEWS CLIP: A comet named Shoemaker-Levy 9 rained down on Jupiter.]
LATIF: ... 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 ...
[NEWS CLIP: Now we look to the skies for our nemesis.]
LATIF: ... turned into ...
[NEWS CLIP: It's only a matter of time.]
LATIF: ... an all-out asteroid frenzy.
[ARCHIVE CLIP, Deep Impact: The comet we discovered is the size of New York City.]
LATIF: In the '90s, you get asteroid blockbusters like Deep Impact.
LULU: Oh, oh, and Armageddon?
[ARCHIVE CLIP, Armageddon: The United States government just asked us to save the world.]
LATIF: Yeah.
[ARCHIVE CLIP, Armageddon: Anybody wanna say no?]
LATIF: Not to mention ...
[ARCHIVE CLIP: Judgement Day.]
[ARCHIVE CLIP: Asteroid!]
[ARCHIVE CLIP: Meteor Man!]
LATIF: ... a horde of B-grade movies and TV.
LULU: Nice.
LATIF: And all the while ...
[ARCHIVE CLIP: Our movie is very much based on facts.]
[NEWS CLIP: Could the latest sci-fi blockbuster become fact?]
LATIF: ... people keep spotting real-life asteroids and comets.
[NEWS CLIP: The comet of the century, Hyakutake.]
[NEWS CLIP: Comet Hale Bopp ...]
[NEWS CLIP: Asteroid 1997 XF11 ...]
LATIF: And the anxiety just compounds.
[NEWS CLIP: If it had struck, it would have had the effect of 40,000 ...]
[NEWS CLIP: Nearly two million ...]
[NEWS CLIP: 300 million ...]
[NEWS CLIP: 500 million Hiroshima-type bombs.]
[NEWS CLIP: 2028, that could be our last—our last time on Earth.]
LATIF: Now imagine bundling up all of that fear and anxiety and plopping it on the desk of this guy.
BRIAN SKIFF: [laughs] I mean, I actually have no formal training in astronomy, believe it or not.
LATIF: Really?
LATIF: Because that's basically what happens next.
BRIAN SKIFF: I just have a BS in physics, which I just barely got. [laughs]
LATIF: So this is Brian.
BRIAN SKIFF: I am Brian Skiff.
LATIF: He does in fact work in astronomy.
BRIAN SKIFF: At Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona. I am a research assistant.
LATIF: 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.
LULU: [laughs] Oh.
LATIF: Anyways, 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.
LATIF: LONEOS, is that how you pronounce it?
BRIAN SKIFF: Yeah. The Lowell Observatory Near-Earth Object Search. NASA likes acronyms when you put in grant proposals.
LATIF: [laughs]
LATIF: And what they did was ...
BRIAN SKIFF: We refurbished a wide field camera of a special kind.
LATIF: Essentially their job was to scan ...
BRIAN SKIFF: A substantial fraction of the sky.
LATIF: Every single night.
LULU: Hmm.
LATIF: And what they were looking for were ...
BRIAN SKIFF: Potentially-hazardous asteroids.
LATIF: What they call PHAs—asteroids that could be the killer. And it is in this nightly hunt that Brian discovers Zoozve.
LULU: Okay!
LATIF: It looks like an asteroid about the size of the Eiffel Tower.
LULU: Oh! Okay.
LATIF: Imagine something kind of gray and pockmarked and potato-shaped. And it's a PHA.
LULU: Oh!
LATIF: 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."
BRIAN SKIFF: Yeah, this is not one of those.
LULU: Okay.
LATIF: So at that point, Zoozve seemed so unremarkable that Brian kind of mentally crosses it off his list of things to worry about, and ...
BRIAN SKIFF: I had no notion that I had even discovered it.
LATIF: ... forgets about it entirely.
LULU: Huh!
LATIF: But fast forward a year, and ...
SEPPO MIKKOLA: [laughs] Can you see my face?
LATIF: I can see your face.
LATIF: ... Zoozve catches the attention of this other scientist.
SEPPO MIKKOLA: In Finland, my name is pronounced simply, Seppo Mikkola.
LATIF: Back in 2003, Seppo was an astronomer at the University of Turku, studying ...
SEPPO MIKKOLA: Celestial mechanics.
LATIF: Basically orbits.
SEPPO MIKKOLA: It's all very simple, actually.
LATIF: Seppo says that when he first noticed Zoozve, he realized it was in a ...
SEPPO MIKKOLA: Very strange-looking situation.
LATIF: As in its orbit didn't really make sense. So ...
PAUL WIEGERT: Hello?
LATIF: ... Seppo calls up his colleague, whose name is Paul.
SEPPO MIKKOLA: Paul Wiegert from Canada.
LATIF: Whom I also called.
PAUL WIEGERT: If I'm not huffing and puffing too much from coming up the stairs, then I think I'm good to go.
LATIF: He's also an orbit-studying astronomer at the University of Western Ontario.
PAUL WIEGERT: Yes.
LATIF: And he says in order to fully understand how weird Zoozve's orbit is ...
PAUL WIEGERT: Let me think about the best way to explain this. So ...
LATIF: ... you have to understand this one fact about the solar system.
PAUL WIEGERT: It's an ironclad rule of our solar system ...
LATIF: 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.
PAUL WIEGERT: And so the moons orbit planets, the planets orbit the Sun.
LULU: Wait, but moons—doesn't a moon technically orbit the planet and the Sun?
PAUL WIEGERT: The answer is sort of technically, but we're actually talking about something different.
LATIF: What we're talking about is like—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.
PAUL WIEGERT: Yes.
LULU: Got it.
LATIF: Now Seppo and Paul look at Zoozve ...
PAUL WIEGERT: Making careful calculations, computer simulations and so forth.
LATIF: 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 ...
PAUL WIEGERT: Even though it's orbiting the Sun ...
LATIF: Venus is also keeping this tiny gravitational toehold on it. And because of that, while Zoozve's going around the Sun ...
PAUL WIEGERT: It actually stays relatively close to Venus and loops around it.
LATIF: ... it circles Venus too.
PAUL WIEGERT: To our amazement, it's orbiting both.
LULU: So Zoozve is, like, in a poly relationship with the Sun and Venus?
LATIF: Yeah, which by the way, nobody has ever seen before.
PAUL WIEGERT: Revealing, if you will, the first quasi-moon known in our solar system.
LULU: "Quasi" meaning just like a small moon?
LATIF: "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.
SEPPO MIKKOLA: Quasi-moon or qwazy moon. Which one is correct pronunciation?
LATIF: When you say it, I like 'qwazy' because it sounds like 'crazy.'
SEPPO MIKKOLA: [laughs]
LATIF: And it really is kind of crazy, because Paul and Seppo realize its orbit ...
PAUL WIEGERT: Takes it close both to the Earth and to the planet Mercury. It actually is quite a large distance from Venus at times.
LATIF: And not only that ...
SEPPO MIKKOLA: I wondered where it came from.
LATIF: ... Seppo actually computes Zoozve's trajectory backwards in time.
SEPPO MIKKOLA: And I found that 7,000 years ago ...
LATIF: It was actually way closer to us. And we flung it away.
LULU: Oh!
LATIF: And now it's off dancing with Venus. It's this free spirit do-si-do-ing around the solar system.
LULU: So, like, Latif, 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?
LATIF: Okay, so much of it goes back to the poster, right?
LULU: Hmm.
LATIF: The map.
LULU: In your kid's room.
LATIF: 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? Their rails.
LULU: Right. And it's predictable. You can keep your watch by it.
LATIF: Totally.
LULU: Like, this is just Earth, this is the speed she goes.
LATIF: Yeah.
LULU: This is her rotation.
LATIF: Yeah.
LULU: She'll be back here at this station this time next year.
LATIF: Yeah, exactly. It's a clock. We live in a clock, right?
LULU: Right.
LATIF: 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 2,000 years, right? You have Aristotle and the Greeks. They were writing about perfect crystalline spheres, all nested one inside the other. And then 1,500 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. But still, it's a new version of the clock.
LULU: Hmm.
LATIF: Everything is still moving in graceful, nested curves in predictable ways, right? And that's how I always envisioned everything moving up there.
LULU: Right.
LATIF: Then Zoozve doesn't seem to fit neatly within that system. It's a weirdo. It's a rule-breaker.
LULU: But don't you think Zoozve's still operating within a bigger clock? Like, it might still just be following different rules.
LATIF: Sure. There are rules, there are definitely rules. But the thing is, Zoozve 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.
LULU: Three body problem, okay.
LATIF: Basically, the three body problem is this idea that if you're tracking—mathematically trying to predict and understand these two bodies ...
LULU: Yeah?
LATIF: ... that are circling one another, or orbiting one another, their gravities 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.
LULU: Okay.
LATIF: When you literally add one other thing, when there's three bodies, which is—Zoozve is a third body, right?
LULU: Mm-hmm.
LATIF: All of a sudden, the math becomes exponentially more difficult to the degree that ...
SEPPO MIKKOLA: Mathematically, it's impossible to follow it.
LATIF: ... you just cannot calculate where Zoozve is gonna go next.
LULU: Hmm! That is really counterintuitive. I would expect that, like, the right physicists or astronomers with the right map—it's like okay, now you just also have Sun pulling, so it will go ...
LATIF: Right. You think it's like juggling balls. Like, it's like juggling three balls is not that much harder than juggling two balls.
LULU: Right.
LATIF: Right. But this is like, literally once you add the third ball, it's like every mathematician drops all the balls.
LULU: It, like, becomes unknowable?
LATIF: 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 Zoozve is gonna leave Venus at some point.
LULU: Oh.
LATIF: But we don't know what it's gonna do after that. It's a mystery!
LULU: Okay, that is exciting.
LATIF: And by the way, Zoozve 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 quasi-moons.
LULU: Hmm!
LATIF: And these other quasi-moons, some of them behave in even weirder ways than Zoozve does.
LULU: Huh. Okay.
LATIF: There are ...
PAUL WIEGERT: The Jovian Trojan asteroids.
LATIF: Even though they're orbiting Jupiter, they don't circle it.
PAUL WIEGERT: 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.
LATIF: Like secret service agents or something.
PAUL WIEGERT: Yeah, something like that.
LATIF: Then there are horseshoe quasi-moons, which look like they ...
PAUL WIEGERT: Start out in front of the planet ...
LATIF: Orbit part way around the planet ...
PAUL WIEGERT: And then they stop and slow down ...
LATIF: Turn around, go back the other way.
LULU: Wait, how do they stop and slow down and turn around?
PAUL WIEGERT: [laughs] It's the planet's gravity that causes this advance and retreat motion.
LULU: Weird!
LATIF: It's gonna get weirder here. There's some that do, like, a comma shape.
LULU: Hmm.
LATIF: Like back and forth.
LULU: [laughs]
LATIF: And those ones are called tadpoles.
LULU: [laughs] That's cute!
LATIF: And Earth has a bunch of quasi-moons, too.
LULU: We do? How many have they found?
LATIF: There's at least, like, seven of them, I think.
LULU: What?
LATIF: And all of these are all different. Like, we have some Trojan moons, we have some horseshoe moons.
LULU: Wow!
LATIF: And so now, when I think of that same map, it's like full of all these weirdo characters, all dancing around like a fantasia, you know?
LULU: Well, so it's not like—we're not stuck in a clock. We're what? We're like—we're in a club?
LATIF: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. It's like—it's like Venus hooked up with this random asteroid at a club and they're dancing together ...
LULU: [beatboxes]
LATIF: ... but then at the end of the night they're gonna part ways, and who knows where they're gonna go next?
LULU: Yeah. There's so much unknown. It's like you don't know ...
LATIF: Right.
LULU: ... you don't know who you're gonna dance with next.
LATIF: Right. And I would rather live in a club than in a clock.
LULU: Yes. Yeah.
LATIF: You know what I mean?
LULU: Yeah. No, I feel that.
LATIF: And there's one more thing, actually. When I was talking to that Finnish scientist, Seppo, I asked him what he thought about Zoozve. Because I mean, like, this is a guy who has spent his whole career mapping out where objects will go next in the solar system.
LULU: Yeah, like building the clock. He's been a clock-maker.
LATIF: That's right. And so I was like, "Okay, what do you feel about Zoozve? How do you feel about the fact that Zoozve's so unpredictable?"
LULU: Hmm.
SEPPO MIKKOLA: Nothing.
LATIF: [laughs]
LATIF: 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.
SEPPO MIKKOLA: If I could predict everything, then we could just believe that everything has been determined.
LATIF: But it's not predetermined because, Seppo says, Zoozve is just an exaggerated version of what he has already known.
SEPPO MIKKOLA: Everything has gravity in them.
LATIF: Everything in the universe is pulling on everything else. The three body problem, it does apply to Zoozve, but it also applies everywhere. Which means, you know, in the long term, everything is impossible to predict.
SEPPO MIKKOLA: Yeah, yeah. That's right. Because very tiny things can change everything. If I do this with my finger ...
LATIF: So at some point, Seppo, he just picks up his finger and he starts, like, waggling it side to side.
LULU: Hmm, like scolding you?
LATIF: I had no idea what he was doing. And then he was like, "Look, just by doing that with my finger, just now ..."
SEPPO MIKKOLA: I may have changed Earth's orbit.
LATIF: " ... I might have changed the Earth's orbit."
LULU: Wait, and is that really—that's like—that's not just hubris dream thinking, that's—that's like an astrophysicist who understands the forces of gravity saying, "I could have for real-real."
LATIF: Yeah.
SEPPO MIKKOLA: It becomes obvious after some billions of years, very tiny things affect everything when there is enough time.
LATIF: And for me, like, for Zoozve to enter my life in this totally random way because some illustrator accidentally put it there, and it ended up in my kid's room, and then Zoozve 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.
LULU: Okay, that is pretty beautiful.
LATIF: Yeah. Right?
LULU: That gave me—that gave me the shin tingles.
LATIF: Zoozve, right?
LULU: Zoozve. Right. Go, Zoozve!
LATIF: [laughs] Okay. So Lulu, this was supposed to be the end of the story.
LULU: Mm-hmm. It felt like an end.
LATIF: It felt like three ends. But as I was reporting, this other possibility opened up.
LULU: Uh-huh?
LATIF: And I just could not—I could not resist. It is a way to put Zoozve on the map for real.
LULU: Whoa! What do you mean?
LATIF: I'll explain after the break.
LULU: Okay. [singing] How do you solve a problem like a Zoozve? How do you hold a moonbeam in your hand? You can't because gravity—and we're gonna follow Zoozve as she tears another hole in the universe into a new possibility. Okay. Continue.
LATIF: [laughs]
LATIF: Okay. So this is Radiolab. I'm Latif Nasser.
LULU: I'm Lulu Miller.
LATIF: Back to Zoozve.
LULU: Mm-hmm.
LATIF: So when I was talking to Paul Wiegert, remember who's the guy who helped figure out this was a quasi moon ...
LULU: Yeah.
LATIF: ... 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.
PAUL WIEGERT: All asteroids, when they're first seen, are given what's called a 'provisional designation.'
LATIF: 2002-VE is just the name it got auto-assigned when it was discovered.
PAUL WIEGERT: Not its final name.
LULU: Oh.
PAUL WIEGERT: An asteroid can be named only after it is considered to be sufficiently well-studied and sufficiently well-understood.
LATIF: And 2002-VE68 is now at that point.
PAUL WIEGERT: Yes. But it has not yet been assigned one.
LATIF: And it hit me, like, 2002-VE68 is a—is a terrible name.
LULU: [laughs]
LATIF: It, like, sounds like a car serial number.
LULU: Yeah.
LATIF: It's like, what if David Bowie was named 2002-VE68? It just doesn't feel right.
LULU: Yeah. It's not the right name for this beautiful creature in the sky. I hear that.
LATIF: And that's when I got the idea that I/we have gotta name it.
LULU: Wait, can you do that?
LATIF: Well, so I asked Paul, like, who's in charge of naming asteroids?
PAUL WIEGERT: The privilege of suggesting a name goes to the discoverer.
BRIAN SKIFF: It turns out that is me.
LATIF: So I went back to Brian Skiff, the guy who discovered Zoozve.
BRIAN SKIFF: In the early days, one was encouraged to be, you know, imaginative.
LATIF: He's discovered over 50 asteroids, and has named a bunch of them.
BRIAN SKIFF: 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.
LATIF: Nice!
LATIF: He told me about a bunch of other weirdly-named asteroids.
BRIAN SKIFF: There's names of tropical flowers that a guy in Belgium was naming.
LATIF: Hmm!
BRIAN SKIFF: There was a Swiss astronomer that named it for his favorite airline, which is Swiss Air.
LATIF: So random!
BRIAN SKIFF: An astronomer named one for his cat, Mr. Spock. [laughs]
LATIF: Oh my God! So the asteroid isn't named after the Star Trek character?
BRIAN SKIFF: Not named after the Star Trek character.
LATIF: Wow!
LATIF: And hearing him say all these names, like, it just occurred to me ...
LATIF: Do you think it would be possible to actually name this thing Zoozve?
LULU: [laughs] Oh my God, yes. Yes!
BRIAN SKIFF: Yes. I guess that is possible.
LULU: I mean, it has to be—you have to immortalize the typo. It needs to be Zoozve.
LATIF: It should be Zoozve.
LULU: It wants to be Zoozve. There's no better name.
LATIF: Like, even just for search engine optimization, like, there is nothing else called Zoozve out there. It's not gonna get confused with anything else.
LULU: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
LATIF: So now theoretically, you just have to, like, send a request to the powers that be, and then they will name it?
BRIAN SKIFF: Yes. Yes.
LATIF: And you are thinking favorably of naming it Zoozve?
BRIAN SKIFF: Oh, I wouldn't think of that at all. [laughs]
LATIF: You would not name it Zoozve?
BRIAN SKIFF: No.
LATIF: Um, but ...
BRIAN SKIFF: I think the answer is no.
LATIF: The answer is no? Okay, can I make a case to you?
LATIF: And Lulu, as you know, I am nothing if not persistent. That's like my number one superpower.
LULU: [laughs] This is true.
LATIF: So ...
LATIF: The illustrator, he mistook 2002 for ZOOZ ...
LATIF: ... 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 Zoozve, like, with the poster and everything. And when I did ...
BRIAN SKIFF: Oh! Wow!
LATIF: It was a mistake.
BRIAN SKIFF: Wow! [laughs]
LATIF: It was a mistake. So he made an error, but I kind of fell in love with the error.
BRIAN SKIFF: Wow. Yeah, that's kind of interesting.
LATIF: And there's nothing else in the whole world called Zoozve.
BRIAN SKIFF: Zoozve! Wow.
LATIF: Would you like to name this asteroid Zoozve?
BRIAN SKIFF: It would be interesting if the story of this mistake could be compressed down to 300 characters.
LATIF: Brian was like, "Okay, 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."
LATIF: 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 in?
BRIAN SKIFF: Yes.
LATIF: We can do that?
BRIAN SKIFF: Yeah, sure. That's enough of a little twist that that would be very interesting ...
LATIF: Right?
BRIAN SKIFF: ... to see if it gets by the naming committee.
LULU: Wait, wait, naming committee?
LATIF: Yeah. So basically, when Brian submits the name, it would then have to be reviewed by this group called the IAU.
BRIAN SKIFF: The International Astronomical Union.
LATIF: Those are the name keepers. Name deciders.
BRIAN SKIFF: Yeah. Well, a committee under the IAU gets to do this. It's called the Small Bodies Nomenclature Committee, or something like that.
GARETH WILLIAMS: Well, the official term is the Working Group: Small Body Nomenclature. Which is a bit of a mouthful.
LATIF: Yeah.
GARETH WILLIAMS: So we normally just call it the WGSBN.
LATIF: It's very cool what you do you, but I do think maybe you need a better name?
GARETH WILLIAMS: [laughs]
LATIF: So this is Gareth Williams. He's an astronomer who worked at Harvard for many years, and is the secretary of that working group.
GARETH WILLIAMS: Rumors that I am an alien are not correct.
LATIF: I'm glad you clarified.
GARETH WILLIAMS: [laughs] I would typically work 100-plus hours a week, and so the rumor went around that I wasn't human.
LATIF: Anyway, so Gareth explained that the working group is ...
GARETH WILLIAMS: Responsible for naming asteroids and comets.
LATIF: And it's made up of ...
GARETH WILLIAMS: 11 voting members.
LATIF: Who are astronomers who live all over the world.
GARETH WILLIAMS: We have a couple of members in the US, we have members in the Czech Republic, Russia, China, Japan, New Zealand and Uruguay.
LATIF: 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.
GARETH WILLIAMS: 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."
LATIF: Right.
GARETH WILLIAMS: Yes we can, because it's a privilege, and we have to vet what you want to say.
LATIF: 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.
GARETH WILLIAMS: We don't allow political or military names, unless the person—if it's a person ...
LATIF: No names of products or companies.
LATIF: Are there, like, people wanting to name things after themselves?
GARETH WILLIAMS: You can't do that.
LATIF: No names that are too generic.
GARETH WILLIAMS: No names of pets. Mr. Spock caused a bit of controversy.
LATIF: Scientific animal names are okay, though.
GARETH WILLIAMS: Right.
LATIF: No names that are acronyms.
GARETH WILLIAMS: Yeah.
LATIF: No names longer than 16 characters.
GARETH WILLIAMS: Yes.
LATIF: And there are lots more.
LATIF: Oh, boy!
LATIF: But there was one rule in particular that stuck out to me as a potential problem.
GARETH WILLIAMS: Yeah. Any object that can approach the Earth closely should have a mythological name.
LATIF: Hmm.
GARETH WILLIAMS: Because no person should have an object that could hit us named for them.
LATIF: 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.
LULU: [laughs] Right.
LATIF: Anyway, so only mythological names. And even though there's no way Zoozve's approaching us anytime soon, because it's within a certain range of Earth, it does fall under that rule.
LULU: Oh!
LATIF: And are there ever exceptions to that rule?
GARETH WILLIAMS: Not really.
LATIF: Okay.
GARETH WILLIAMS: 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.
LULU: Oh, this is not looking good.
LATIF: Yeah. But still, I thought to myself, I convinced Brian. I could definitely convince Gareth.
GARETH WILLIAMS: Some people are just very persistent.
LATIF: And does persistence pay off, do you find?
GARETH WILLIAMS: No.
LATIF: No.
GARETH WILLIAMS: No. Persistence just annoys me. [laughs]
LATIF: Okay, interesting. Good to know.
GARETH WILLIAMS: Although I'm—I'm very—I maintain my cool.
LATIF: Okay.
GARETH WILLIAMS: But internally, I'm seething.
LATIF: Really? Oh my gosh. Okay, this is very good information to have.
LULU: [laughs] Latif, you are so out of luck. You're doomed.
LATIF: Maybe. But remember, he's just one person out of 11.
GARETH WILLIAMS: Basically, it's a majority vote.
LATIF: 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?
GARETH WILLIAMS: [laughs] Marbled hall. No, we don't have formal meetings.
LATIF: They do everything online.
GARETH WILLIAMS: 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.
LATIF: Got it.
LATIF: Basically, I just became even more convinced that it all goes back to that—you know, that 300-character statement.
LULU: Hmm.
LATIF: Because that's what all the members of the working group are looking at when they cast their vote.
LULU: Okay, so what did you end up writing?
LATIF: Here is the sentence. Are you ready?
BRIAN SKIFF: Okay.
LATIF: So I actually did call Brian back to read it to him before he submitted it.
LATIF: Here it is. And it's actually—so the requirement is 360 characters.
BRIAN SKIFF: Oh, okay.
LATIF: And this is actually only 287 characters. So we got even gravy. If there's something you want to add in there, like, whatever, there's 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-VE, as Zoozve, thus coining this original, odd and memorable name."
BRIAN SKIFF: That sounds fine.
LATIF: Yeah?
BRIAN SKIFF: Oh, yeah. Yeah, we might, you know, change "kids" to "children" and, you know, very minor tweaks. But other than that ...
LATIF: Okay, great. Easy. Done.
BRIAN SKIFF: It sounds fine to me.
LATIF: Do you think they'll—do you think they'll do it? What do you think is gonna happen?
BRIAN SKIFF: I guess I don't have a good feeling for that.
LATIF: Okay.
LATIF: So after that, Brian officially submitted the name proposal to the working group.
LULU: Okay.
LATIF: And our sense was this kind of thing usually takes a couple months.
LULU: Right.
LATIF: That was about three-and-a-half months ago. It took every fiber of my being to not email Gareth a million times.
LULU: Yeah, you gotta sit on your hands, so you have to restrain your natural personality.
LATIF: Sitting on my hands. Locked up my keyboard.
LULU: Don't spook him!
LATIF: Yeah, totally. But then we scheduled ...
LULU: Oh my God, are you about to—are you about tell—okay, okay, okay. Keep going.
LATIF: So we scheduled a time for when he would have the verdict.
LULU: Mm-hmm.
GARETH WILLIAMS: Yep. I hear you.
LATIF: Oh, great. I can hear you.
LATIF: So we got on the phone for the moment of truth.
GARETH WILLIAMS: Okay, let me just check my phone.
LATIF: Great.
GARETH WILLIAMS: For the—I'm logged in on my phone to the voting site.
LATIF: Okay.
GARETH WILLIAMS: Let me just check—let me just refresh the page.
LATIF: Oh my gosh, this is so dramatic! I'm like—I'm—I'm holding my breath here.
GARETH WILLIAMS: [sighs] I've gotta sign in again? Argh!
LULU: Gareth, you're killing me. [laughs]
GARETH WILLIAMS: I have to log in again to the site, annoyingly sign in. And this time I will save the password. Save.
LULU: This is cruel and unusual.
LATIF: [laughs]
GARETH WILLIAMS: Okay. As of yet ...
LATIF: Yeah.
GARETH WILLIAMS: ... the decision on Zoozve has not been finalized.
LULU: [gasps]
LATIF: [gasps] Okay. Okay, and I mean, "finalized."
GARETH WILLIAMS: Meaning we don't have a resolution as of yet.
LATIF: Oh, okay.
LULU: [laughs] Wait, they still don't know? They're still waffling over there in the naming-the-stars-land committee?
GARETH WILLIAMS: It's—we're still waiting on two members to vote, and I sent them both emails last night and this morning.
LATIF: [laughs] Thank you. Appreciate it.
LULU: Argh!
LATIF: Well, it turns out—it turns out one of the people who hadn't voted yet had COVID.
LULU: Oh.
LATIF: Which is why they didn't vote.
LULU: All right, you gotta send them some soup, okay? But in the soup, the alphabet letters can only spell "Zoozve."
LATIF: [laughs]
LULU: Subliminal messaging here. You gotta—you gotta send them a voicemail that forward says "Blahlala," but backwards says "Zoozve."
LATIF: [laughs]
LATIF: Okay, what I did do instead was I just tried to get any information I could.
LATIF: Can you tell us where—where the vote tally is now?
GARETH WILLIAMS: I can't—I can't give you numbers.
LATIF: Okay. Was it close?
GARETH WILLIAMS: Um, I can't be more specific.
LATIF: Like, needle any intel I could out of him.
LATIF: Have you already voted?
GARETH WILLIAMS: Oh yes.
LATIF: Can you tell me what you voted?
GARETH WILLIAMS: No, I can't.
LATIF: Okay, okay, okay.
GARETH WILLIAMS: [laughs]
LATIF: All right. No problem.
LATIF: Yeah, so basically we just have to wait.
LULU: Aww! Are you okay, Latif? Are you—I'm sorry. I'm sorry you don't have an answer!
LATIF: I'm just patiently waiting on the edge of my seat.
LULU: Not knowing what's ahead of you, much like Zoozve ...
LATIF: Right.
LULU: ... themselves.
LATIF: Okay, wait. But he did actually ...
LULU: [gasps] Yes?
LATIF: ... say one thing.
LATIF: Can you tell me if it's—in which direction it's leaning?
GARETH WILLIAMS: It's leaning for.
LATIF: [gasps]
LULU: [gasps]
LATIF: Really?
LULU: For Zoozve?
GARETH WILLIAMS: Yes.
LULU: [laughs] Hey! Oh Latif, that's good news!
LATIF: We're very close. Could go either way.
GARETH WILLIAMS: Like any group, there's a conservative wing, there's a liberal wing and there's a middle-of-the-road wing.
LATIF: Who are the two holdout votes? Where would you put them on the spectrum?
GARETH WILLIAMS: Middle of the road.
LATIF: Okay. Huh. Swing votes.
LULU: Oh, they're the swing—gosh! Well, so what does that make you feel?
LATIF: I mean, it just opens it back up. It could go either way again. I don't know.
LULU: Yes.
LATIF: It's like vote counting on the Supreme Court, basically.
LULU: [laughs] Yeah, right. So we'll just keep—we'll keep hoping? And when are we gonna find out?
LATIF: In a couple of weeks, I'll come back at you with an update.
LULU: Okay. Yes, call me anytime of day or night. I—I am now invested.
LATIF: This episode was reported by me, Latif Nasser, with help from Ekedi Fausther-Keeys. It was 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 Kelly and edited by Becca Bressler.
LATIF: 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-VE mystery, you can hear her work on NASA's Curious Universe podcast.
LATIF: 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/join. For existing Lab members, look out for a discount code in your exclusive feed.
[LISTENER: Radiolab was created by Jad Abumrad and is edited by Soren Wheeler. Lulu Miller and Latif Nasser are our co-hosts. Dylan Keefe is our director of sound design. Our staff includes: Simon Adler, Jeremy Bloom, Becca Bressler, Ekedi Fausther-Keeys, W. Harry Fortuna, David Gebel, Maria Paz Gutiérrez, Sindhu Gnanasambandan, Matt Kielty, Annie McEwen, Alex Neason, Sarah Qari, Alyssa Jeong Perry, Sarah Sandbach, Arianne Wack, Pat Walters and Molly Webster. Our fact-checkers are Diane Kelly, Emily Krieger and Natalie Middleton.]
[LISTENER: Hi, this is Susanna calling from Washington, DC. Leadership 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.]
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