Zoozve, Weirdo in the Solar System
We think we know our solar system. Obviously not every single object and rock, but at least the categories of objects in it. Sun, planets, moons, comets, asteroids, asteroid belt, meteorites, we’ve covered everything, right? Not entirely, as Latif Nasser found out. His discovery started off from a kiddish solar system poster on his 2 yo son’s wall. As per that poster: “Venus had a moon called Zoozve. ” What, he thought? Among the rocky planets (Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars), wasn’t Earth the only one with a moon? The NASA site said Venus had no moons. He googled up Zoozve. No results, at least not in English. That could have been the end of it – an error in a kid’s poster. But Nasser didn’t stop. He called up the illustrator of the poster – the man said he didn’t cook it up, that he found Zoozve on some online list of moons. And then Nasser’s friend at NASA called him back. It wasn’t Zoozve, it was 2002-VE, an actual object near Venus. That fit – the...