00:02Well, this is a leftover part of what's called the upper stage of the Falcon 9 rocket that
00:08back in 2025, so really just about a year and a half ago, sent the blue ghost lander
00:14to the moon, which was a highly successful mission.
00:17But what happened, that upper stage rocket is really important because it nudges that
00:21mission safely out of Earth's orbit on its way to the moon, but it seemed like that upper
00:26stage didn't quite have enough fuel to be able to get itself out of the way.
00:30So now it's been drifting on a course, and we're going to see it hit the moon, like you
00:34said, in just a few days.
00:35We say it's, you know, drifting through space, but it's actually traveling at close to 9,000
00:41kilometers an hour.
00:42So it will smash into the western side of the moon.
00:45It's not just going to hit it.
00:46It's going to smash into the western side of the moon, creating a plume of dust and debris
00:51that will go up tens of kilometers above the lunar surface.
00:55Now, the whole process will be over in just a matter of a few minutes, but we will be
01:00able to view this from Earth, just not from Australia, because it'll still be daytime.
01:05For us, it'll only be about 4.30 in the afternoon, so it'll be more of those kind of nighttime
01:10regions that are going to be able to see it.
01:12But it will be a very bright flash that will happen for just a couple seconds, but then the
01:17plume will go up, and that will give us an excellent chance to study the composition
01:21of what's been thrown up into the air, but to then also understand when occurrences like
01:26this happen, it's very different from when an asteroid strikes the surface, and what would
01:31even happen if we had astronauts who had been there.
01:33So back in 2022, there was a piece of a Chinese rocket that we believe hit the far side of
01:39the moon.
01:40But again, being able to observe that and have open access to the results of that impact and
01:46studying it was not something that was kind of globally open and known about.
01:50So this actually does give us a really good chance to kind of in detail study what this
01:55type of event would happen, and then to be able to really understand too, again, like we said,
02:00for future space debris mitigation, how could we keep these upper stages from drifting like that
02:06and understand that for the future missions to the moon, because we're going to be seeing
02:10so many of them over the next several years.
02:12The moon is something that's fascinated us.
02:15You know, it's deeply rooted to indigenous, you know, sky country and storytelling.
02:19And so we want to respect the fact that this is not just something for us to go and explore
02:25as amazing as that is.
02:26And so I think it's actually a big focus for global space regulation, as well as understanding
02:31Australia's growing role in space exploration and how we continue to be responsible while
02:37pushing the boundaries and enabling, you know, new economic opportunities and innovation
02:42and inspiration.
02:43But we've got to be doing it in the right way.
02:45So this is a huge topic of conversation now for us globally.
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