The Quest for Zoozve, the Moon of Venus

Latif Nasser is a writer, radio show host, and dad. His child has a poster illustrating the solar system. Nasser noticed something odd about it: the illustration suggested that Venus has a moon named Zoozve.

This was news to Nasser, who didn't know that Venus has moons. NASA asserts that Venus has no moons and a web search for Zoozve returned no results in English. One of his friends, who works for NASA, insists that Venus has no moons. So Nasser contacted the illustrator, who says that he saw the moon on a list.

Nasser kept investigating. It turns out that a small asteroid (approximately the size of 160 Chester A. Arthurs) is in the vicinity of Venus. It's called 2002-VE, which the illustrator misread as Zoozve.

But Zoozve (let's keep using this name) is not, strictly speaking, a moon. It is a extremely rare object called a quasi-moon. Zoozve orbits both Venus and the Sun at the same time.

-via Virginia Postrel


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