SpaceX’s 40,000 moons are about to be spoiling our opinion of the universe- not to mention aliens’ view of us

My best New Year’s Eve was 15 years ago. A mis-calibrated dose of drug painkillers in a bed and breakfast near Wootton Courtenay entail I slept through the whole thing. I slept through the suspicion. I slept through the terrifying. I slept through the recriminations and unhappiness. And I slept through Jools Holland insisting on playing inappropriate boogie-woogie piano with- who will it be this year?- Peter Brotzmann, Napalm Death, Youssou N’Dour, Mark and Roxanne from LadBaby, or the future holiday soul of his own grinning self.

This New Year’s Eve I lay on my back in the garden-variety, long after midnight, belly full of Butty Bach( tm)( r) brew and mini Quorn( tm)( r) sausages, and looked at the stars. Do they have elections on those distant macrocosms, I wondered? Is there an immigrant Dominic Cummings, and if so, how would you know? Does the foreigner Sir Iain Duncan Smith eat his own mucus in public like our Earth Sir Iain, or does he really devour snappies? On Alien Sir Iain’s world is crisp-eating considered outraging, while finger-picked mucus is the cuisine of the Princesses of Mars? And is that the opening Jennifer Arcuri dancing round the Pole Star? Remember her? Thought not.

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Read more: theguardian.com