Twenty years after its uncovering , asteroid and quasi - moon 2002 VE 68 has been officially renamed " Zoozve " after a strange recording label on his 2 - class - old child ’s poster of the Solar System chair Radiolab legion Latif Nasser to investigate further .

In a widely - shared X ( Twitter ) train of thought , Nasser explicate that he found a mystery moon on his child ’s astronomy poster labeled " Zoozve " near Venus . This is rum , as Venushas no Sun Myung Moon , prompting Nasser to look into .

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Google found no reference book to any " Zoozve " , and a friend at NASA had no idea what it was referring to either . Nasser phone the bill poster ’s illustrator , who swore that he took the name from a list of moons of the Solar System .

To cut a tenacious ( but enjoyable ! ) narration brusque , Nasser ’s NASA friendLiz Landaurealized what had happened . The moon was not " Zoozve " , but object 2002 VE 68 . When outer space objects are first seen , they are dedicate a provisional name base onwhen they were discovered . The first number part , as you might have guessed , relates to the twelvemonth , while the letter come to to when it was name in the yr .

The quasi - satellite is a lot more interesting than your stock quad rocks , being as it was the first of its form ever chance on , due to its strange arena .

" Like all asteroids , its orbit takes it around the Sun , with asteroid closer to the Sun circling more rapidly and complete a ' year ' in a inadequate clock time . The ' year ' for VE68 is shorter than the Earth year , time in at a little under 225 day , " Zoozve ’s discoverers , lead by Seppo Mikkala of Tuorla Observatory , explainedback in 2004 .

" This is almost precisely the same as the ' twelvemonth ' of the planet Venus – and it turn out that like synchronised divers in the Olympic Games , both VE68 and Venus are move around around the Sun nearly in lock - step . "

Tracking the orbit of 2002 VE , the squad pick up the first quasi - moon , or quasi - satellites , in the Solar System . Quasi - moons , as the name suggests , are not quite Moon . They orbit the Sun but are also influence by the planets along their course .

" This objective is the first - identified quasi - orbiter of a major planet ( Venus ) , " the Working Group of the International Astronomical Union ( WGSBN ) denote in abulletin . " When creative person Alex Foster drew this object on a Solar System poster for children , he mistook the initial eccentric of the provisional appellation as letter , thus coining an odd and memorable moniker . "

2002 VE has been orbiting the Sun and come across Venus for quite a while , but the team who first describe its cranial orbit cerebrate it may have fall from elsewhere .

" Our computations show that it has been in its present orbital state for about seven millenary and will stay there for five more centuries to come , " the team write in their 2004paper .

" Very close overture with Venus and Mercury are excluded within the interval of time of reliable numerical computation of the reach , but echo coming upon with the Earth do occur . From the evolution of the orbit of this object , we resolve that it may have been a near - Earth asteroid , which , some 7,000 yr ago , was injected into its present celestial orbit by the action of the Earth . "

[ H / T : Radiolab ]