Space Force Unveiled: The Surprising Reality of Weapons in Orbit

0:00Andrew Dunkley Hello, thanks for joining us. This is Space

0:02 Nuts, where we talk astronomy, space science and all sorts of weird and wonderful things. This one though, uh, one of the stories we're covering today, uh, sort of dovetails into something we talked about not, um, so long ago regarding Space Force. No, it's not a sequel to their, uh, unveiling of their uniforms, but it is something we have talked about recently.

0:25 So the penny might drop with, uh, a few people as to what that might be. We'll get into that shortly. And should we be calling Mars the purple planet? I'll tell you why. And they've found yet another big crater on the moon. We'll talk about all of that on, uh, the latest episode of space nuts.

0:44Professor Fred Watson 15 seconds. Guidance is internal.

0:47 10, 9. Ignition sequence start.

0:51Professor Fred Watson Space nuts. 5, 4, 3. 2. 1. 2, 3, 4,

0:54 5, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1.

0:56Andrew Dunkley Space nuts.

0:58Professor Fred Watson Astronauts report it feels good.

1:01Andrew Dunkley And he joins us again and, uh, we're so

1:04 happy to have him. It's Professor Fred Watson Watson, astronomer at large. Hello, Fred Watson.

1:08Professor Fred Watson Hello, Andrew.

1:09 Hello, M. I think we both had a busy week, haven't we? It's amazing we can squeeze these in. Yes, yes.

1:14Andrew Dunkley Uh, it's crazy. Uh, and, and

1:17 uh, next week's going to be even worse for me with, um, a major golf tournament at our club, which I'm heavily involved in and I think not only on the organising side of it. I've got to play for 18 whole rounds in, um, six days or something. Oh, gosh, I don't know. Why do we do these things to ourselves, Fred Watson?

1:41Professor Fred Watson Yeah, exactly.

1:42Andrew Dunkley Yeah, it'll be fun. It'll be fun.

1:45 Um, it'll probably help me sleep on the plane when we do our trip in a, in a couple of weeks time. Although by the time this episode gets released, um, I, I don't know where we'll be. But, um, let's get down to business. We have got so much to talk about. And this first story has probably shocked, um, a few people that have uh, now heard the news, uh, involving Space Force and their um, announcement that there are in fact weapons in orbit around Earth.

2:19 We talked about this not so long ago, Fred Watson, and we just assumed that's probably the case. But no one's admitting anything. Well now the United States has actually fessed up.

2:30Professor Fred Watson Uh, they have. That's right, with an

2:32 announcement, uh, which I've currently lost. Uh, but is. Here we are. Uh, it was, came from the secretary, uh, of the Air Force, um, whose name is Tony Meek. I think that's how it's pronounced. Uh, and this was at a conference on airspace and cyber, uh, and the secretary of the Air Force or Air Force said today we continue to ensure we remain ready to meet the challenges of evolving threats wherever they exist. This is why the United States now has on orbit space control weapons capable of defending the joint force against hostile adversary action. So, um, you know, it's one of these things pretty well, as you said that we've talked about before, that we've tacitly assumed, uh, certain other powers

3:28 have weapons in space, but nobody's ever come up front and said it. Um, and so the, uh, admission by the secretary of the Air Force is quite significant. So, uh, it sounds as though there's a whole retinue of possibilities that this might include. My first thought was electromagnetic weapons, lasers, um, because that's what the Reagan administration were looking at back in the 1980s, the Reagan star wars programme.

4:04 But, uh, we now have, um, I, uh, guess a whole array of things that probably weren't around then. Um, including directed energy by lasers, uh, or radio frequency jammers. But also there are chemical sprayers, uh, there's net equipment, microwave devices. Once again, that's electromagnetic or basically just good old fashioned kinetic impact. Uh, in other words, something into.

4:32Andrew Dunkley Crash into something.

4:33Professor Fred Watson That's right, yeah. Uh, so, uh,

4:36 yeah, really interesting, uh, to read that. Uh, the first thing I did when I read this last week or earlier in the week was to check what the, um, International Space Outer space treaty of 1967 says about weapons. What it specifically, um, prohibits is nuclear, uh, weapons. They are, uh, definitely prohibited by the treaty, though it doesn't mention non nuclear weapons. On the other hand, it does say that, um, you know, the International Space Treaty is all about the peaceful uses of outer space.

5:19 Um, and so it sort of tends to rule out, uh, something that's not peaceful.

5:26Andrew Dunkley And Earth is very upset by that news.

5:28Professor Fred Watson Yeah. Ah, I, uh, need to keep an eye on him

5:31 because I'm his soul,

5:34Andrew Dunkley um, soul carer today.

5:36Professor Fred Watson Not carer. Um, Yeah, I

5:39 don't know what the word is. Uh, I'm his soul support. Just give me a second, Andrew. I've got to find out what's going on.

5:47Andrew Dunkley Okay.

5:48Professor Fred Watson Ah.

5:50Andrew Dunkley Ah, it happens sometimes.

5:52 Um, we've got one across the road that does exactly the same thing whenever the wind changes. Just goes off its proverbial nut and, um.

6:03Professor Fred Watson What's your problem?

6:03Andrew Dunkley I can't see him at the moment. But it's only

6:06 a puppy. See, it doesn't understand, but, um, it drives people crazy sometimes.

6:14Professor Fred Watson Um. Come on.

6:15Andrew Dunkley All right. I Think we're going to have an

6:18 added guest to the show by the sound of it.

6:20Professor Fred Watson Good lad. Yes, sit down,

6:24 make yourself at home. No idea what that was about. Sorry about that, Andrew.

6:29Andrew Dunkley It could have just been a butterfly,

6:30 Fred Watson. Who knows?

6:32Professor Fred Watson Usually it's a leaf.

6:34Andrew Dunkley That's what I was saying.

6:35Professor Fred Watson Yeah.

6:36Andrew Dunkley Or a change of breeze.

6:37Professor Fred Watson Yeah, something like that. Yeah.

6:39Andrew Dunkley Um, back to our topic. That's okay. Uh,

6:42 back to our topic. Uh, I just did uh, a bit of a search on um, an AI platform to see what sort of weapons could potentially be in orbit around the planet at the moment. Because they're not going to confess to what exactly they've got, I imagine. Um, but anti satellite interceptors, electro magnetic, um, or electronic warfare jamming robotic co. Orbital weapons, uh, directed energy weapons. Conventional missile launches from orbit would be possible. Uh, this one's interesting.

7:14 Kinetic tungsten projectiles. Uh, you were talking about kinetic weapons. Nuclear, uh, weapons are uh, technically plaus, but as you said, outlawed by uh, the Outer Space Treaty. And chemical and biological weapons in orbit. Uh, but again, um, there's possible prohibition of those. So um, you got to wonder whether or not that particular thought.

7:43Professor Fred Watson Did you say biological?

7:45Andrew Dunkley No, chemical?

7:46Professor Fred Watson Yeah.

7:46Andrew Dunkley Chemical and biological.

7:48Professor Fred Watson Yeah. You would want to keep those out

7:51 of space, I guess.

7:53Andrew Dunkley I've been reading a book, uh, by John

7:56 Birmingham, an Australian sci fi author called World War 3.0. I think I've mentioned it before. Great, great series. And it involves the fact that um, uh, a uh, task force from the future ended up getting sent back to World War II and it changed the world. And uh, Stalin, because they had access to all the history of what was going to happen to them that hadn't happened yet. Uh, people like Stalin didn't end up dying as early as we know, um, and developed weapons uh, of mass destruction that were fired from space and attacked NATO with kinetic tungsten projectiles from space. So it's really interesting that that turned up on the list.

8:42Professor Fred Watson Yes, that's right. Ah, it's pretty sharp. Uh,

8:45 is Mr. Uh, Birmingham.

8:47Andrew Dunkley It sure is.

8:47Professor Fred Watson Gig with him once, which was great pleasure.

8:50 Yeah.

8:50Andrew Dunkley But this is, this is a very um,

8:53 dicey subject. Probably a divisive subject and one that I think is a cause for concern to um, a certain degree because um, you know, no one up until now has admitted that they have weapons in orbit. We've just assumed they probably have. The US is the first to actually say, yep, yep, we've done it. They're up there. We don't know what they are though, do we?

9:21 Exactly.

9:22Professor Fred Watson No and, and with, you know, with other

9:25 nations that almost certainly have them too, uh, it's still a matter of conjecture because they're even less likely to uh, to, to give us details of what they've got in space.

9:36Andrew Dunkley The reasoning behind this has been suggested

9:38 that we, we need to um, arm ourselves to be ready for whatever threat may exist in the future. What kind of threat could develop in space? And are we talking weapons that are going to be used in space against something else in space, or are they looking at weapons that they can use from space to the ground? Aim at a target on Earth?

10:03Professor Fred Watson Yeah.

10:04Andrew Dunkley Or is it both?

10:05Professor Fred Watson It could be both, but I think the former is

10:07 the one that is the one they're most upfront about. Um, there was a comment uh, from uh, actually um, Dr. Malcolm Davis, who's a senior analyst at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, um, who says Space Force is a direct response to the growing Russian and Chinese anti satellite and anti space capabilities, particularly anti satellite missile systems as displayed by the Chinese in 2007. Uh, and that's, I uh, guess um, some of the um, things that we know about because of the DEB that was released when they were tested.

10:48 Uh, so uh, it's uh, you know. Ah, you're absolutely right. There's two conversations here. There's the one you know, that's up front the sort of we know nothing conversation. And yet underneath that uh, there's a very, very detailed analysis of what's going on uh, and what is basically likely to be possible. Another comment from Malcolm Davis. Uh, the decision to combine the space capabilities across the various branches, a standalone branch of the US Armed Forces which is equal to branches like the US Navy or US Air Force is an important step forward and highlights how important the US considers the space domain.

11:28 So that's, yes, that's another possible uh, uh, another comment there. I mean to some extent that's really regarding the formation of the Space Force which happened some time ago.

11:41Andrew Dunkley Would it be too long a bow to draw, no

11:43 pun intended, that um, they're doing this because they know the others have to.

11:49Professor Fred Watson Um. Yes. I don't think that's a longbow at

11:52 all. I think that's very likely. Yeah.

11:56Andrew Dunkley It's sad isn't it? I mean we shouldn't be

11:58 surprised. Uh, we lock our doors because we don't trust people that walk past our houses. This is just a very elaborate and high tech orbital version of that, I think.

12:09Professor Fred Watson Yes it is. Yeah, yeah, that's mhm. Right.

12:13Andrew Dunkley And that's unfortunately human nature. Ah.

12:15 And we, we have. And in fact when you, when you read um, into it deeply, the article that we're referring to in arstechnica.com says what is clear is there is now an arms race in orbit. Uh, and, and we, I didn't mention the you know, potential antagonist but uh, I don't think you would get much money back from a bet on it being Russia and China.

12:40Professor Fred Watson Yes.

12:41Andrew Dunkley So it's um, it's, it's no surprise

12:43 at all. Uh, who knows where it leads Fred Watson, that's, that's the next question. You know what, what could happen next? Uh, ah, are we going to see at some stage in the future an all out assault, Satellites versus satellites? I don't know.

12:59Professor Fred Watson It could um, I mean that could change our

13:01 world completely because of the absolute dependence that we have on space technology. Yeah, pretty well. Everything we do, including what you and I are doing now goes through space.

13:14Andrew Dunkley Ah, it wouldn't surprise me either if there

13:17 was some major conflict in the future. Uh, one of the strategic targets would be communications, uh, satellites and military satellites.

13:27Professor Fred Watson That's right.

13:28Andrew Dunkley So yeah, here it is, it's all ready to go and

13:32 another um, arms race is upon us. If you'd like to read about that. Uh, As I said, arstechnica.com has written a um, quite uh, significant article explaining what is happening. But yes, the United States is the first to admit that they have weapons in orbit. This is Space Nuts with Andrew Dunkley and Professor Fred Watson Watson.

13:58Professor Fred Watson I'm going to step off the land mountain.

14:02 That's one small step for man, one

14:10Andrew Dunkley Space Nuts. Okay Fred Watson, let's

14:13 go to Mars. Uh, it is a um, beautiful planet. Uh, I saw a photo the other day of a sunset on, on Mars and it is just you know, nothing like we get on Earth. It's, it's a beautiful sight. And uh, interestingly enough when the sun is setting on mar, the sky turns blue as against. When the sun is setting on Earth the sky turns red. Um, what they've discovered now is that uh, maybe we should be starting to think about uh, start to think about calling it the purple planet because uh, down near the south pole there are some landscapes that just the photos, I can't describe them. That will do them justice I think is what I'm trying to say.

14:58Professor Fred Watson Uh, that's right.

15:01 I'm always hesitant Andrew to pick out stories that um, rely heavily on visual images because a lot of our listeners just listen rather than watch. Uh, but it's well worth having a look at these. Um, perhaps the best site is uh, The European Space Agency site. Uh, Purple Swirls on the Red Planet. Uh, it's basically a press release came out last um, in fact a couple of days ago. Uh, and it's a nice, it's a region around Mars south pole which is being illuminated from pretty low angle, uh as you'd expect near the south pole.

15:39 Um, but the colours are ah, exactly as you've said. The colours are what make this quite dramatic. Striking swirls as they describe it, of purple, pink and red. It's a far cry from the colour palette we usually associate with the red planet. Yeah, so, yeah, very, very interesting. And I think the reds and browns, um, they do come not from uh, sunset illumination as you've already indicated. The sky is blue on Mars at sunset. Uh, but it comes from the dust, the oxidised iron, uh, the dust in the atmosphere, the dust that settles on pretty well all the surfaces just because uh, of the winds that blow on Mars. Um, and so uh, there's lots of uh, of red in perhaps all its manifestations from pink to

16:30 purple, um, sometimes almost white but still with that reddish hue. Uh, and it's a region uh, called uh, Thyles Rupus. I uh, beg your pardon? Rupes. Rupes is uh, a Latin word for cliff or wall. Thales is actually uh, refers to Thule. Thule which we used to talk about. Ultima Thule was the name that we used to give to Arrokoth, the Furth known object that's been visited by a spacecraft. So, um, these are materials which uh, seem to be as well due to volcanic activity to some extent. Um, a comment on the ESA uh website says that the volcanic activity leaves environments um, rich in materials such as olivine and pyroxene, both of which are prevalent in Earth's mantle. Um, and those layers of rock actually not far below the crust of our

17:28 planet, although that's quite thick. But yeah, some really interesting geology there. Um, lots of craters in the region, uh, evidence of perhaps a glacier there as well. Uh, given that we're near the, near the pole. Uh, so, um, well worth a look if our listeners want to check it out. Purple Swirls on the Red planet.

17:46Andrew Dunkley Yes, I just sent the link to our live

17:48 audience so those that are in the chat room can uh, click on it and have a look at some of these pictures. Uh, they are truly extraordinary. I think Fred Watson, uh, that um, these images were impossible in the recent past, but they are now um, more and more significant and more and more detailed because the technology is just getting so much better. The High definition cameras that are available, um, the super pixel cameras, whatever you want to call them, uh, that can take these images and create such fine detail, it's really amazing.

18:28Professor Fred Watson Well, uh, that's certainly true, uh, but Mars

18:31 Express, when was it launched? It's probably about 20 years ago I think. Um, let's just check when it went into space. I can do that.

18:41Andrew Dunkley I'm raising you 6-2-2003.

18:45Professor Fred Watson Got it.

18:45 Yeah, there you go. 23 years ago. So that is pretty uh, legacy technology I think you'd say. And imagine what you could do now given that the high resolution cameras um, aboard Mars Express are probably only comparable, uh, with the cameras that are in our smartphones, rather than being comparable with the camera that's on the Vera C. Rubin Observatory's telescope, uh, which is the size of a bus.

19:14Andrew Dunkley Yes, yes, I think I've said it before that

19:17 uh, the technology uh, in a standard smartphone today, uh, far exceeds the computer capacity of um, the Apollo 11 mission. And, and I think it was clearly demonstrated on Apollo 13, uh, in the movie that uh, when, when they were trying to keep the astronauts alive and, and reinvent their carbon filters, uh, carbon dioxide filters and all that jazz, that um, they had to sequentially turn systems on and off so that the batteries wouldn't die and that the astronauts would be stranded. And when you listen to the dialogue, I mean the amount of power they were talking about was minuscule.

20:02 And the um, computer capacity of the spacecraft we're talking about in those um, late 60s, early 70s space flights was just. You couldn't fit a hundred songs on it.

20:17Professor Fred Watson That's absolutely right. I remember, um,

20:20 what year would it have been? 69, I think. The party that we had to celebrate, uh, our mainframe computer, the biggest computer almost in Scotland at St Andrews University when its memory was upgraded to 256k, which. Well, it's not, it's about half a song, isn't it? Yeah, it is less than half a song.

20:46Andrew Dunkley And now you, you drive through a city like

20:49 Canberra, which I did a few weeks ago, and you, you drive past massive buildings that are the, you know, the size of shopping centres and they are 100 dedicated to data storage. It is mind blowing what we hear

21:04Professor Fred Watson a lot about, um, data centres and they're

21:07 going to be a big issue. They're certainly a big issue here and in the United States about whether we want them chewing up our power and our water. Um, they are very, very power hungry.

21:17Andrew Dunkley In particular, I'm not sure I mentioned it

21:19 but they uh, uh, I was listening to two fellows that I was playing golf with down in Canberra one day that were talking about one of the data centres and they said, um, did you go into the wind tunnel? And uh, my friend said, yeah, I did. It's where all the hot air gets blown out of the building. Um, and I said it's like walking through the Zaharov desert. It's just so hot in that tunnel because of um, the amount of air that's required to cool the servers that are storing the data. And it's big business now. It's huge.

21:57 We're getting a bit off track but uh, we're talking about the advances in technology and in terms of um, space photography, uh, um, it's probably going ahead in leaps and bounds.

22:11Professor Fred Watson But just um, recapping what we are talking

22:13 about, that's as we were saying, that's 23 year old cameras at least that are on Mars Express. But what will have improved is the processing technology to get the very best images out of those. And perhaps that's one reason why we're seeing these glorious images of um, Mars, Southern moon, polar region.

22:35Andrew Dunkley Yeah, on that I took some photos uh,

22:37 with my smart telescope the other night. I've got some really lovely images and I took a really nice one of the moon because it was um, I don't think it was a full moon that night, but it was damn close and I, I thought I'll see what um, ChatGPT can do to this. So I, I put the photo in ChatGPT and I just said can you sharpen this, enhance it a little? I don't want to lose the character of the image but I, you know, can you, can you ramp up the um, uh, the image a bit so that it um, it's got, it's a bit more striking. Wow.

23:14 What it did was amazing. Um, yeah, I should send you the two shots so you can see the

23:19Professor Fred Watson difference, but um, to see them.

23:21Andrew Dunkley Yeah, yeah, it was, it was quite remarkable

23:23 what it did. Um, so I was um, yeah, I was quite, uh, quite chuffed with how that turned out. So even if you get a really shonky image, sometimes you can just load into uh, an AI platform and say, well, can you do this? And wham, most of the time it can. Remarkable what's available to us now. And it brings me back to that old question.

23:48 If we can do this as everyday people in our homes with the AI technology that's available, what kind of AI technology are they developing or have they developed for military services and all of those kinds of um, things you Just, you know, it's probably way beyond our imaginations already.

24:11Professor Fred Watson Indeed, I think. Yeah.

24:13Andrew Dunkley Anyway, uh, yes, if you would like to see

24:15 those ESA images of Mars around the South Pole region, uh, they are absolutely beautiful and you can uh, go to the ESA.int website and check it out. You're listening to Space Nuts, a, um, standard edition with Andrew Dunkley head Professor Fred Watson Watson.

24:38Professor Fred Watson Okay. We checked all four systems and being with a

24:41 girl, Space nets.

24:42Andrew Dunkley I was about to say Q and A edition, but

24:44 that's, that's next. We do that next. I'm getting ahead of myself. Um, we go from a very colourful place to a not so colourful place. Although the, you know, when you talk to the astronauts who have walked on the uh, moon, they go, hang on a minute. It is actually quite colourful here. You just gotta, you know, be pretty close. Uh, yes, the moon, uh, the reason it's in the news at the moment, to quote my friend Fred Watson Watson, is because they've found a new hole, uh, a crater and it was almost found by accident.

25:14 Fred Watson.

25:15Professor Fred Watson Yeah, that's right. It's people trolling

25:17 through and uh, it's actually NASA researchers who are doing this using the uh, images from NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, uh, which again goes back probably a couple of decades, uh, and is a phenomenal device for imaging the lunar surface. Um, so uh, what they do, the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, it surveys the moon's surface on a regular basis and so you can tell if something changes.

25:47 And this basically is something that has changed. There has been uh, an impact on the moon that's created a crater quarter of a kilometre across, 222 metres, uh, and up to 43 metres deep. So this is a big hole, um, and it's actually the biggest known impact crater that has been created in recent times. Uh, it fell ah, between uh, two surveys or scans of the moon. So we've got, we don't have a precise date for it but we do have um, a pair of dates between which we know uh, when that happened. Uh, and I've lost the dates now on my scre screen, uh so I'll have to rely on you to tell me what they are. But it was a relatively short interval between the two dates that define when this event took place.

26:45Andrew Dunkley I'm looking, I'm looking, uh, somewhere

26:47 between April 11th and May 22nd, 2024 they think.

26:53Professor Fred Watson Yes. Okay, so these are uh,

26:55 images that were taken a couple of years ago, bit more than a couple of years ago but nevertheless, uh, still yielding uh, new data and so it's, and uh, what's I think more striking about this, that the diameter and depth of the crater uh, are quite impressive. But when you look at wide angle images um, you can see that there is debris spread around for quite um, you know, quite a big radius, something like seven kilometres wide, uh, where you've got basically a lower temperature on the moon's surface.

27:34 And that comes about because the, the topsoil has been loosened. Uh, it's the um, you know, the top few, only the top few centimetres, uh, that have been stirred up and that's enough to reveal a different thermal signature from the moon, uh, so it's actually cooler. There is a comment um, uh, uh in the report on this that I read uh, which is um, that but due to uh, asteroid impacts and the material that they eject the top couple of inches of lunar soil or the top inch or so it's being overturned every 80,000 years. Uh, and that's not that long because we used to think that the Apollo astronauts footprints would last forever but they won't. They'll be recirculated by debris that is um, probably pushed up into

28:35 the lunar environment, not the lunar atmosphere because there isn't one, but debris from collisions. And I think the other important thing about this story is that that debris, of course, and knowing about debris like that, it's going to play into how you defend um, a moon base. If you've got a moon base on the surface of the moon, no matter what nationality you're talking about, uh, you're going to need the structures to be reasonably robust uh to not to worry about damage from material debris that's been kicked uh, up by impacts on the lunar surface because those impacts will continue to happen. There's no atmosphere to slow them down.

29:16Andrew Dunkley Now what do they think caused this

29:19 crater?

29:21Professor Fred Watson An object? Um, I think it

29:24 was a few metres. I've got two separate reports on this and I think that's in the other one. I think it is um, um, probably a few tens of metres across.

29:34Professor Fred Watson Right. Uh, and that's the

29:38 um, you know that that's typical of the kind of amount of kinetic energy that will be in uh, something that size. Let me see if I can find that number. Probably can, maybe can.

29:52Andrew Dunkley Speaking, speaking of numbers, this, this

29:54 crate is so deep you could put um, three school buses end to end.

29:59Professor Fred Watson Yes, I saw that. It's got

30:02 to be American school buses.

30:04Andrew Dunkley Yeah. And wellness.

30:05Professor Fred Watson That's right.

30:06Andrew Dunkley And they've got to be yellow.

30:08Professor Fred Watson Yeah, I can't find the estimate of

30:10 um, the size of the impactor was, but it would be certainly, um, you know, something that um, is significant enough to uh, basically provide that amount of energy, uh, to make a hole that big.

30:26Andrew Dunkley Yeah. And the other thing is it hits the moon

30:29 harder than it hits Earth because there's nothing to slow it down.

30:32Professor Fred Watson That's correct.

30:34Andrew Dunkley So it's much more explosive on the lunar

30:36 surface than if something like this, uh, hit Earth. In fact, if this particular rock had hit Earth, it may not have done much at all.

30:45Professor Fred Watson Well, it probably would have exploded in the

30:47 atmosphere. Yeah, that's the thing, you know, like the, um, Chelyabinsk event back in 2013, was it that, uh, was something 30 metres across that exploded in the atmosphere. But if it hit the ground on the moon, it might have been made quite a big hole. Yeah, yeah, I'm sorry, I can't find, um, an estimate of the, um, the size of that from, uh, the size of the impact crater. But, uh, I'm sure it's uh, not that far away to discover it.

31:16Andrew Dunkley Um, let me see if I can find it.

31:19Professor Fred Watson Thank you. Thank you. That'd be very good.

31:22Andrew Dunkley That hit the moon

31:25 in 20, 25, 20, 24. Uh, 24.

31:31Professor Fred Watson Sorry, that's what you read before.

31:34Andrew Dunkley Yeah, yeah. Um,

31:37 okay, so, uh, yeah, Magechen crater. And they're saying the impactor was roughly 20 to 30 metres across.

31:47Professor Fred Watson There you go. So, um, what did I just say? 30

31:50 metres was the, uh, size of the Chelyabinsk, uh, impactor. Uh, and this is probably similar.

31:56Andrew Dunkley Yeah, so a similar kind of rock. So this

31:59 is probably one we didn't see in advance by the sound of it.

32:02Professor Fred Watson Um, that's correct. Uh, a

32:05 30 metre object seen from the distance of Earth will be virtually invisible. Bearing in mind that we can't see the, you know, the landing, the Apollo landing sites with any terrestrial telescopes, we can certainly see them from Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter and see what's left there, but can't see it from a. Yeah, okay.

32:27Andrew Dunkley Uh, you can read all about it, uh, on the

32:30 NASA website. Uh, it's a fantastic site to visit. So much great stuff there. Uh, that brings us to the end of our show. Fred Watson, thank you so much.

32:40Professor Fred Watson Oh, it's a pleasure, Andrew. Always good to

32:43 talk about these things, even when they are weapons in space.

32:45Andrew Dunkley Yeah, yeah, well, we know now, so, um,

32:50 Very good. We'll catch you soon, Fred Watson. Thank you. Um, and in the meantime, visit us online at spacenutspodcast.com or spacenuts IO have a look around, visit the shop, Send, um, us messages and questions. On the Ask me anything button at the top, it's labelled ama. And maybe sign up for, um, a copy of, uh, the AstroDailyPod Newsfeed if you like. And please leave reviews wherever you listen to or watch us. And thanks to Huw in the studio, who couldn't be with us. I've got to go bail him out again because he's been throwing large rocks at people. And from me, Andrew Dunkley, thanks for your company. We'll see you on the next episode of Space Nuts. Bye bye.

33:28 Space Nuts. You've been listening to the Space Nuts podcast, available at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeartRadio or your favourite podcast player. You can also stream on demand@bytes.com. this has been another quality podcast production from bytes.um.com.