Don’t worry, you haven’t missed an amazing discovery. Venus still doesn’t have a Moon.

Latif Nasser, a podcast host, was surprised, when he bought a poster of the Solar System to put on the bedroom wall of his two year-old son to see a moon of Venus called Zoozve! 

He looked into this, checked with NASA, and eventually made contact with the artist responsible for the poster, Alex Foster. It was revealed that Foster had included in his research a quasi-moon of Venus, officially designated 2002VE. Foster subsequently misread his own

handwriting of 2002VE as Zoozve. (The full designation is, in fact, 2002VE68).

Image credit LatifNasser on X 

What is 2002VE68?

The designation refers to its original discovery by Brian Skiff of the Lowell Observatory as part of their Near Earth Object Search on 11th November 2002. (The ‘V’ indicates the first half of November of that year.) Its full significance was, however, not at first realised when it was reported to the Minor Planet Centre.

Subsequently, it was studied by Seppo Mikkola of the Tuerlo Observatory and Paul Wreger of the University of Western Ontario, who realised it was the first discovery of a quasi-moon. Although predicted as long ago as 1913, none had previously been identified. A quasi moon is an object that appears to orbit a planet but is in fact not gravitationally related to it.

Also designated as 524522, 2002VE has a radius of 118 metres, and an orbital period of 225 Earth days, which coincides with Venus’ orbital period of 225 days (to be accurate, Venus’ orbital period is 224.7 days).

Although in very close proximity to Venus, which it appears to be orbiting, 2002VE is actually orbiting the Sun and is not gravitationally linked to the planet. Indeed, its orbit is very eccentric; it reaches inside the orbit of Mercury and extends beyond Earth’s orbit. One theory is that it’s present orbit is the result of a near-Earth encounter some 7000 years ago and will only remain for a further 500 years.

The name Zoozve was adopted on 5th February 2024, by the International Astronomical Union, the body responsible for agreeing to such names.

Are there any other quasi moons?

So, Zoozve was the first quasi-moon to be discovered, but it wasn’t the last. There have now been eight other quasi-moons discovered that appear to orbit a planet but, in fact, do not have a gravitational link to it.

One of these is the quasi-moon of Neptune (309239) 2007RW10. This has been in this relationship with Neptune for about 12,500 years and will remain so for another 12,500 years.

The other seven so far discovered (2023) are around Earth. These are designated 469229

Kamo’oalewa (originally thought possibly to be the most stable); (169229) 2004 GU9; (277820) 2006FV35; 2014OL339; 2013LX28; 2020PP1 and 2023FW13 discovered on 28th March 2023 by the Pan-STARRS observatory on Maui. It is thought to have been in a resonance 1:1 relationship with Earth since 100CE and may continue to be so until 3700CE which would challenge Kamo’oalewa as the most stable quasi moon of Earth. Its orbit extends from half way to Venus to halfway to Mars.

Are there any other near Earth objects?

There are other near-Earth objects that are not quasi-moons. 3753Cruithne was sometimes wrongly referred to as Earth’s second moon.

Discovered on 10th October 1986 it is an Aten asteroid with a radius of 2.5 km and an orbital period of 364 days. But although it has an orbit that partially brings it close to Earth, it’s orbit is occasionally described as being horseshoe-shaped and reaches from a point near Mercury and beyond Mars. It is not a quasi-moon.

Earth also had two Trojans, 2010TK7 and 2020 XL568, at its Lagrange point L4. These obviously are not quasi moons either.

So, Zoozve does indeed exist, but it is not a moon but rather a quasi-moon of Venus.