0:49

Astronomycast, episode 745. How

0:52

do we know when asteroids will attack? Welcome

0:55

to Astronomycast, our weekly fact -based journey through the

0:57

cosmos, where we help you understand not only what

0:59

we know, but how we know what we know.

1:01

I'm Fraser Cain. I'm the publisher of the university.

1:03

With me, as always, is Dr. Pamela Gay, a

1:05

senior scientist for the Planetary Science Institute, and the

1:07

director of CosmoQuest. Hey, Pamela, are you doing? I

1:11

am doing well. I

1:13

am currently dealing with some allergy

1:15

situation. So if you hear me

1:17

coughing, I'm not sick. I just

1:19

have stupid allergies. But

1:22

yeah, I have never

1:24

been more grateful to

1:27

All of you on Patreon as

1:29

as we watch everything going on,

1:31

I've had all of my colleagues

1:33

like struggle with funding and stuff.

1:35

So Patreon people, you allow me

1:37

to wake up a little bit

1:40

less scared of my inbox. So thank

1:42

you. Yeah, I have the same. Like

1:44

I have a different view as

1:46

a Canadian facing down tariffs from

1:49

the United States and all the

1:51

disruption that's going to be happening.

1:53

I have the same. ability

1:56

to breathe easy thanks to

1:58

everybody who has already become

2:00

patrons. It's kind

2:02

of amazing at this point how stable

2:04

I'm able to make Universe Today and

2:06

like a lot of writers are coming

2:08

out of the woodwork and saying, hey

2:11

Fraser, do you have any more work?

2:13

Stuff's drying up and I think

2:15

that is now going to accelerate

2:18

and I want to save them

2:20

all but I can't. Yeah,

2:24

so for those of you who have

2:26

already become patrons of either astronomy cast

2:28

or universe today or cosmo quest or

2:30

all three Thank you so much for

2:32

those of you who are on the

2:34

fence and kind of going like oh

2:36

is this is this it is this

2:38

the time is this when I when

2:40

I directly support the creative work of

2:43

the of the podcast and the media

2:45

that I really enjoy yes Yes,

2:47

this is the time, this is the moment. You've,

2:50

you know, we've all admired your

2:52

stoicism from afar, but now you

2:54

need to jump in and you

2:56

need to help the, and not

2:58

just us. I mean, we are,

3:00

we've already been supported in the

3:02

large part by patrons and sponsors.

3:05

You know, we've been very good.

3:07

But there's a lot of channels out

3:09

there. I think about all the stuff

3:11

that's run by PBS, the stuff that's

3:14

a lot of educational content that has

3:16

some level of financing through various

3:19

government grants and things like that.

3:22

They're going to get mass occurred

3:24

shortly. So think

3:27

very carefully about how

3:29

you Consume content

3:31

which channels you are most

3:33

grateful for and then figure

3:35

out how you can support

3:37

those creators directly with You

3:39

know if you if you

3:41

watch a thing and you

3:44

love it Support it directly because

3:46

if if people don't do that

3:48

then that thing will just disappear

3:50

and it will be replaced with

3:53

AI slop it'll be replaced by

3:55

a Substandard version

3:57

of it and and this

3:59

is spiral that we are

4:02

now approaching and so I

4:04

think You know for both of

4:06

us I think we're gonna be able to

4:08

weather this a lot of places that there

4:10

aren't gonna be able to weather this and

4:12

so just now is the time Contribute directly

4:15

to the content that you

4:17

find wonderful All

4:20

right, I'm sure you've heard the news.

4:22

Asteroid 2024 YR -4 has a tiny

4:24

chance of hitting Earth in 2032. How

4:26

do astronomers discover these dangerous asteroids,

4:29

measure their future impact risk, and

4:31

track the changes over time? When

4:33

should we panic? And

4:36

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we're back. All right,

5:59

Pamela. So before we start

6:01

talk about just like how this

6:04

all works in general, you know,

6:06

we are in the late

6:08

February 2025. And

6:11

we can give you

6:13

sort of a status

6:16

today of wire four

6:18

and then we will begin

6:20

to dismantle the whole proposition

6:22

and move forward. So where

6:24

do we stand today with

6:26

wire four? So

6:28

as of 1 16 p .m.

6:30

on February 20th that is in

6:33

central time and these numbers are

6:35

changing as data gets reduced and

6:38

understood. Hourly. Yeah, exactly.

6:41

We are sitting at a

6:43

1 .5 % chance of

6:45

the Earth getting impacted and

6:47

a 0 .8 % chance

6:50

of the Moon getting impacted

6:52

in 2032. Right.

6:55

December 2032.

6:59

And what we know about the

7:01

asteroid is probably about 50 meters

7:03

across, could be as big as

7:05

80 to 100 meters across. Uh,

7:08

the, like if you, the

7:11

most accurate number

7:13

crunching right now tells us

7:15

that it's going to come

7:17

within about 160 ,000 kilometers

7:19

of earth, which is close.

7:22

Like that is, that's half

7:24

the geosynchronous. Yeah. Yeah. Geosynchronous

7:26

is say 35 ,000. Kilometers.

7:29

The moon is, you know, on

7:31

average 400 ,000 kilometers or three

7:33

and 84. So it is path.

7:35

less than half the distance from

7:38

the earth to the moon. Now

7:40

you mentioned, it's funny, so you

7:42

mentioned 1 .6 % chance

7:44

of it hitting earth. And

7:48

like yesterday that we're

7:50

recording this, it was 3 .1. Yeah,

7:52

it had already gone to 3 .1.

7:54

And then today we got this lowering

7:56

of the odds down to 1 .6.

7:59

1 .5, it's actually 1 .5 now. 1

8:01

.5 now, okay. Like since

8:03

we started recording this episode, Yeah. So

8:06

I'm looking at the NASA's century. Yeah.

8:08

Yeah. Yeah. All right.

8:11

So, so let's first, so

8:13

that's, so that's the situation.

8:15

And then let's chat a

8:17

bit about worst case scenario.

8:19

Okay. Let's say that

8:22

a 50 to 100

8:24

meter asteroid did strike the

8:26

earth. How

8:28

bad would that be? So

8:30

to, to put the size of

8:33

this into a perspective that, that

8:35

is easier to understand than meters.

8:37

This is the size of a

8:39

747 give or take, but

8:42

because of the amount of

8:44

energy it impacts upon intended

8:46

as it blasts

8:49

towards us with a really high kinetic energy.

8:52

If this thing was a solid

8:54

iron core, we're looking at something

8:56

like the Behringer crater, the crater

8:59

that's in Arizona. More

9:01

likely this is something that's going to

9:03

go boom in the atmosphere, and we're

9:05

going to end up with a Tunguska

9:07

-like event that just flattens a region.

9:10

Now, this is what's called

9:12

a city destroyer for small

9:14

enough values of city. bad,

9:20

but it's the kind of thing

9:22

that, since it will have a

9:25

really good approach in 2028 that

9:27

will allow us to get an

9:29

extremely accurate orbit, we

9:31

will either be able to say,

9:33

we are going to move that

9:35

and move it. Right. Well, we're

9:37

going to talk about that later on in the episode because

9:40

that doesn't, that's not going to be as simple as we

9:42

hope. True. But

9:45

it's also the kind of thing where

9:47

we could evacuate the necessary parts of

9:49

the planet that would either be a

9:51

land area or a whole lot of

9:53

shoreline if it's slated to hit the

9:55

oceans. Also part of the conversation that I

9:57

want to have later. All

10:00

right. Mitigation. Yes. Yes.

10:02

But the point being that you say

10:05

city killer. So if it does hit

10:07

a city, it

10:09

is like a 20 megaton Nuclear

10:12

weapon going off in the middle of

10:14

a city and and it's either going

10:17

to be an air blast that

10:19

causes things to go flat Yeah,

10:21

which is not great not good. No, no

10:23

or just a direct We're going to smash

10:25

and directly impart the kinetic energy into the

10:27

surface of the planet Which is actually a

10:30

bit worse, right? And if it

10:32

hits the ocean also not great

10:34

because then it can cause localized

10:36

which can inundate the the shore

10:39

so so You

10:41

know, Chelyabinsk was, I

10:44

think, a 17

10:46

-meter asteroid. Anything

10:49

below 20 meters is going to

10:51

do no worse than blasting out

10:53

a whole lot of windows with

10:56

localized damage, the level

10:58

of like, we shall dent up your

11:00

car or put a hole in your

11:02

roof. But it's

11:04

the kind of stuff that apparently

11:06

also starship will cause if you are

11:09

beneath the starship that explodes. So

11:12

pick your danger. Yeah.

11:14

No, no. Yeah. So

11:16

it's the kind of thing

11:19

that is a apparently acceptable

11:21

level of danger. And

11:23

if you get far enough below 20

11:25

meters, it just burns up in the

11:28

atmosphere. We are lucky enough to have

11:30

this super thick atmosphere that frictionally heats

11:32

and destroys a lot of falling rocks.

11:35

Yep. Now, I want to

11:38

talk about how astronomers find these

11:40

things and figure out those probabilities,

11:42

but it's time for another break.

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care. And

12:19

we're back. So how do

12:21

astronomers find asteroids like this? We

12:24

are very good at recognizing

12:26

asteroids could strike. The dinosaurs

12:28

had a really bad day.

12:31

We do not wish to

12:33

have the same experience the

12:35

dinosaurs had. So we keep

12:38

developing new surveys, new telescopes.

12:40

Currently the leading asteroid finding

12:42

systems are the asteroid terrestrial

12:45

impact last alert system. This

12:47

is Atlas. It

12:49

is a robotic astronomical

12:52

survey. that is out

12:54

there basically looking night

12:56

after night with half

12:58

meter telescopes to see

13:00

what specks of light

13:02

are on the move.

13:05

And it was Atlas that discovered

13:07

YR4 on December 27th, a couple

13:09

of days after its closest approach

13:11

to the Earth. And

13:14

based on how the

13:16

specks of light are moving, we

13:19

start to calculate orbits and

13:21

then do a couple of

13:23

different things, both getting other

13:26

telescopes around the world pointed

13:28

at these objects to confirm

13:30

the orbits. And

13:32

folks also start going through

13:34

archival imagery looking to see

13:36

if they can confirm or

13:38

deny past locations of these

13:40

space rocks. We've

13:45

been chatting about this, I guess, in

13:47

the science communication community. The

13:49

news media has been reporting this. I

13:51

feel like we've been on this for

13:53

about two weeks at this point. And

13:56

when it was first found, it was a 1%. And

13:59

then it was 1. whatever. And then

14:01

it was 2 .3. And then it's

14:03

3 .1. 3 .1. Yeah. So why

14:05

is the percentage going up? So

14:09

this cool adventure we've been on where

14:11

it was getting more and more and

14:13

more ever so slightly likely to hit

14:16

us I have to admit to being

14:18

team asteroid Um, it was I live

14:20

on this planet too Pamela. I

14:22

can't solve an asteroid using asteroid

14:24

solve all your problems I wanted

14:26

to move it. I wanted to have

14:29

an excuse to move it. All right, we'll get

14:31

to that. We'll get to that. All All right,

14:33

so I team asteroid So

14:36

what had happened was they

14:39

calculated what are all the

14:41

possible orbits that could fit

14:43

the observations we have right

14:45

now, which are kind of

14:47

noisy, kind of not ideal,

14:50

because the timeline is too

14:52

short. And

14:54

then they started going back through

14:56

archival data and saying, OK, this

14:58

is an excellent orbit. Was the

15:00

asteroid here? Shoot, it wasn't. When

15:03

you don't find the asteroid along

15:05

the good orbits, that eliminates the

15:08

good orbit possibilities and increases the

15:10

bad orbit possibilities. Interesting.

15:12

OK, so they

15:14

find the asteroid, and they

15:16

find its trajectory, and then they

15:19

go back through archival data to

15:21

see if that Essentially

15:23

you can run that clock forward or backward

15:25

and then see if it was in one

15:27

of those things and it and if it

15:29

isn't there in the in the safe ones

15:31

then you're left with the unsafe ones exactly

15:33

and So they had found

15:35

it in Subaru archives. I

15:38

they were looking in other archives

15:40

as well and it wasn't in

15:42

any of the good places the

15:45

asteroid did not go to the

15:47

good place and because We

15:49

don't have complete coverage of the sky

15:52

every night across all the decades, especially

15:54

not with the big telescopes capable of

15:56

seeing the small rocks. All

16:00

we could say was these good orbits

16:02

are eliminated. We can't check the other

16:04

orbits and we can't check the bad

16:06

orbits. So here

16:09

we are with the

16:11

increasing probability of impact.

16:15

I had no idea that that was the

16:18

mechanism. That's really interesting. Okay. And

16:20

so why then is

16:23

the, is the chance going

16:25

down? Are they also not finding it in

16:27

the bad orbits? Um, so

16:30

it, it, the moon got

16:32

in the way. There was this window of

16:34

time where, because we had a bright moon

16:36

in the wrong part of the sky, it

16:39

was just not possible to. get

16:41

the kinds of data that would

16:43

tell us, no, we're safe. So

16:46

now that the moon is back

16:48

down to a quarter phase, rising

16:50

at midnight, they're able to get

16:52

more data. And that

16:55

more data is giving

16:57

us a better and better

16:59

outlook for the future. Now,

17:02

time has been granted to Andy Rivkin

17:04

and his team to go ahead and

17:06

use the James Webb Space Telescope to

17:09

look at this asteroid next month, which

17:11

will be March as of when we're

17:13

recording this in February. And

17:16

that will hopefully tell us how

17:18

big the asteroid is, further refine

17:21

the orbit. And

17:23

right now, like I said, we're

17:25

at only 1 .5 % so

17:27

it's still a terino scale

17:30

three keep your eyes

17:32

on it folks be alert

17:34

but it will probably go

17:36

down right that the terino

17:39

scale this is that essentially

17:41

asteroids of concern if they're bigger than about 20

17:43

meters then they get to and they have a

17:45

chance of hitting Earth at some point in the

17:47

future, then they get to go on the Torino

17:49

scale. And then the question is, what are the

17:51

chances? What is the scale of the impact? And

17:54

then you get a placement. And I think the

17:56

highest ever was Apophis at like four. And then

17:58

it lost its ranking and went back down to

18:00

zero. And now wire four

18:02

is taking a nice solid three on

18:04

the Torino scale. But we will expect

18:06

almost certainly that it is going to

18:08

drop back off the scale. We're going

18:10

to have to look for something else

18:13

to be the dangerous

18:15

asteroid of the future. All right,

18:17

so next, I've been promising, I want to

18:20

talk about mitigation, and we will talk

18:22

about that in a second, but it is time for

18:24

another break. Time

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comes to their vet care. asteroid.

19:07

Let's say that in fact the

19:09

numbers go higher and higher and

19:11

higher and it gets to a

19:14

point where space agencies are concerned

19:16

that there's a pretty good risk

19:18

that this is going to hit

19:21

us or come dangerously close. What

19:24

could we do to stop this? Well,

19:27

we know thanks to the Dart

19:29

mission that we do have the

19:31

ability to slam heavy objects into

19:34

space rocks and cause their orbits

19:36

to change. And

19:38

from beginning of construction to launch

19:40

was only about three years for

19:42

the Dart mission. So we

19:44

have time, even if we

19:46

wait until 2028 to figure

19:48

out just how bad it's

19:51

going to be to We

19:55

have time to launch something to

19:57

slam into it and move it.

19:59

Now, I'm hoping that we don't

20:01

wait until 2028 to figure out if

20:03

we're going to start launching missions. And

20:06

what's cool is there's lots of

20:09

different possibilities. We were already starting

20:11

to think through, how are we

20:13

going to observe Apophis? in

20:15

all of its glorious detail when

20:18

it comes past us on April

20:20

12th, 2029. Apophis is a

20:22

larger asteroid that's how it made it to

20:24

level four on the Trina scale. It's

20:27

going to be so close

20:29

to the Earth on April

20:32

12th, 2029 that we're going

20:34

to have weather satellite images

20:36

looking down at our planet

20:38

from geosynchronous orbit that show

20:40

an asteroid passing between those

20:42

weather satellites and our planet.

20:44

It's going to be a

20:46

daytime visible object. It's

20:48

kind of awesome. You'll

20:50

be able to walk outside and watch it go

20:53

by. Uh -huh. Yeah. Uh

20:55

-huh. Now, for us, no, we're

20:57

on the wrong continent. Right.

20:59

Um, I'm probably going to have to

21:02

travel for this. Like I feel obligated

21:04

by the universe to go see this

21:06

with my own eyeballs. Wow.

21:08

But like binoculars in the right

21:11

part of earth, watching it go

21:13

by, it's going to be a

21:16

few tens of thousands of kilometers.

21:18

Yeah. A space rock going past

21:20

the earth. Um, but, but,

21:22

and it's big way bigger than

21:25

than wire four. Like wire four

21:27

is small and so of less

21:29

concern. But let's

21:32

so let's say that

21:34

we wanted to quickly

21:36

accelerate a the construction of

21:38

a spacecraft when we launch it. When

21:40

is the best time to do that? Do

21:42

we do this now before it does that

21:45

flyby in 2028 and gets its orbit tweaked?

21:47

Or do we wait until 2028 when we

21:49

know we have a better idea of what

21:51

its orbit is going to be? And it's

21:53

also it's close so we can reach

21:55

out and smash into it. So

21:58

you want to

22:00

try and deflect something as

22:02

early as possible to give

22:04

the effects of what you

22:06

do the greatest opportunity to

22:08

propagate through time. If you

22:10

think about it, if

22:13

you deviate a bullet

22:15

just a tenth of a

22:18

degree and you're a couple of

22:20

feet away from someone, please do

22:22

not do this. A couple of

22:24

feet away from a target, you're

22:26

still going to hit the target.

22:28

But the further away you are,

22:30

the more that deviation causes you

22:32

to be more and more off

22:34

center. So our

22:36

planet is a whole lot bigger,

22:40

but the

22:43

chances of impacting require

22:45

at a great distance for

22:48

the accuracy of the trajectory

22:50

to be just so. So

22:52

the further away in time

22:54

you are, the more

22:57

the change you make has a

22:59

chance to keep an impact from

23:01

happening. I

23:03

would personally say Wait

23:06

until we get the JWST data.

23:09

This is what Andy Rivkin was

23:11

saying is definitely currently NASA's discussion.

23:16

Wait until we get the

23:18

JWST data. Based on that figure out

23:20

what kind of a mission makes sense.

23:23

I think we definitely need to

23:25

plan something to chase this sucker

23:27

down and observe it. Unfortunately,

23:30

2028, it's on an elliptical

23:32

orbit. Our next closest approach,

23:35

it's going to be tens

23:37

of millions of kilometers

23:39

away, which is not

23:41

friendly. But

23:43

we should definitely

23:46

plan to launch something and

23:48

be prepared for anything. Let's

23:51

do science, people. Let's do science. Right.

23:54

I mean, it's an incredible opportunity to

23:56

watch how the gravity of the Earth

23:59

deflects the orbit of an asteroid when

24:01

it's doing this flyby. It's the same priority

24:03

that you're getting with asteroid Apophis with

24:05

the updated version of OSIRIS -REx that it's

24:07

going to be following Apophis. It's going to

24:10

watch as this asteroid gets deflected by the

24:12

gravity of the Earth. That's going to

24:14

tell it about the composition of Apophis.

24:17

if we could do the same thing with YR4,

24:19

then we'll have two data points. Watching as these

24:21

asteroids are deflected by the Earth teaches a ton

24:23

about this. What are the

24:25

risks? I mean, if we attempt

24:27

a deflection of YR4, how

24:30

could it go wrong? Well,

24:33

there's always the possibility that

24:35

the spacecraft goes stupid and

24:37

instead of making it less

24:40

likely to hit us, it

24:42

instead makes it more likely

24:45

to hit us. This

24:47

is why you don't try and deflect

24:49

something that isn't already going to hit

24:51

you right because if it's already going

24:54

to hit you Pretty much. However, you

24:56

deflect it. It's going to miss you

24:58

if it's just going to come uncomfortably

25:01

close There's the chance that you take

25:03

it from uncomfortably close to a direct

25:05

hit So do not try and move

25:08

something that's not already going to hit

25:10

you any other possibilities that we fragment

25:12

it that we smash into it,

25:14

turn it into a hail of

25:16

particles, and now each one of

25:18

those enjoys its own risk chance

25:20

of hitting Earth or not, and

25:22

so you're actually sort of turning

25:24

it into a shotgun blast for

25:26

that next orbit. Now the

25:29

thing is, this is a smaller object.

25:31

Like I said, it's give or take

25:33

the size of a 747. Anything

25:36

under 20 meters is not that big

25:38

of a deal. So

25:40

if we take something that

25:42

is 80 meters

25:44

across and we fragment it,

25:47

as long as those pieces

25:49

are under 20 meters, we're just

25:52

generating a lot of heat, which

25:54

is annoying and problematic. But

25:57

we already have a lot of heat hitting the

25:59

atmosphere from other space rocks. I'd

26:02

rather fragment something

26:04

this small than

26:06

not. I guess.

26:09

Right. Right. Um, and,

26:12

and I know that, uh, there's a great

26:14

article from Ethan Siegel that came out just

26:16

a couple of days ago where he did

26:19

some of the math and it wasn't as

26:21

satisfying as I was hoping that even if

26:23

we build something like dart or maybe even

26:25

like a super dart, something that's like a

26:27

thousand kilograms, we slam it into this asteroid

26:30

as soon as possible. We,

26:32

we just get a reduction

26:34

of the risk by. by

26:38

something that becomes a lot more satisfying.

26:41

We knocked away the 1 % chance down

26:43

to zero. We knocked a 3 % chance

26:45

down to one. We

26:48

know that we're going to make this

26:50

dramatic change and it turns what is

26:52

a risky space or came to something

26:54

that is absolutely safe. And it's assuming

26:56

a perfectly elastic collision. All

26:59

of those... still

27:02

don't get you, you are 100 %

27:04

safe now. They get you, you are

27:07

safer. One of the

27:09

cool things about these is it's

27:11

not just a matter of is

27:13

it a elastic or inelastic collision.

27:15

Is it a collision where the

27:17

thing you strike it with sticks

27:20

or bounces off completely and transfers

27:22

all of its momentum? As

27:25

we discovered with the dart mission, if

27:28

you hit something that's going

27:30

to fall apart, the fact

27:32

that you have a bunch

27:34

of material flying away causes

27:37

the main chunk to accelerate

27:39

away even faster. So you

27:41

have this neat additional way

27:43

of causing things to be

27:45

on a less

27:47

deadly trajectory. Now, again, you don't

27:50

want to move something unless it's

27:52

directly going to hit you because

27:54

the probability that you're going to

27:57

make things worse is non -zero.

28:00

it's already going to hit you, you're

28:02

probably going to make things better. So

28:04

pick your battles. Right. So

28:07

right now, should

28:09

you panic? Absolutely not.

28:12

When should you know to panic?

28:14

2028. 2028 all right,

28:17

so you have to wait and we

28:19

obviously we're gonna update you as we

28:21

get closer either when it goes completely

28:23

down to zero and and even they

28:25

know the 2028 flyby is gonna be

28:27

fine But after 2028 so we'll tell

28:29

you when to panic But until then

28:31

please don't panic. Don't worry

28:34

This is a tremendous science

28:36

opportunity and this is a

28:39

great example of yeah of

28:41

And don't let Pamela's apocalyptic

28:46

fantasies, you know, kill

28:49

your boss. I want to move it.

28:51

I want to see the world come

28:53

together. Yes. Wouldn't that

28:55

be amazing on the little

28:58

spacecraft that moved the space

29:00

rock. I want global science.

29:03

Yeah. And there are multiple

29:05

teams. So there is a

29:08

team from the European Space Agency

29:10

that's already come together. develop a

29:12

working group to think about this

29:14

and a separate team from China

29:16

that is doing the same thing

29:18

and they're already having collaborations between

29:20

the two groups and so we

29:22

could we could absolutely see no

29:24

matter what some kind of spacecraft

29:26

maybe a international collaboration going to

29:28

check it out at the as

29:30

a scientific interest or to actually

29:33

move it and so so stay

29:35

tuned we will keep you posted

29:37

as as progress continues All

29:41

right Pamela. Thank you so

29:43

much and What have you got for

29:45

us now? I I

29:47

just want to take this moment

29:49

to say thank you to all

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of our patrons out there. And

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you all so much. And if

30:58

you too would like an opportunity

31:00

for me to mispronounce your name,

31:03

I am so sorry, everyone. you

31:05

really want that. Thanks everyone

31:07

and we'll see you next week. Bye bye.

31:16

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