Name: Object 2014-28E.

Age: Unknown.

Appearance: Unknown.

What is it? Unknown.

Yes, but what does it actually do? Unknown.

This is going to get quite tedious quite soon. I’m sorry, but we know so little about Object 2014-28E that it is hard to be specific.

Tell me what we do know then. Well, it is something that was launched into orbit from Russia six months ago as part of a mission to deploy more military communications satellites.

OK. At first it was thought to be a piece of debris, but then it began zipping around, visiting other Russian space objects, and finally appearing to connect with one at the weekend.

Wait a minute, this is the beginning of You Only Live Twice! Eventually we’ll discover that the object is part of a plot to provoke nuclear war and was fired out of a hollow volcano by Donald Pleasence and some piranhas. Actually, if there is a villain in this case, it’s more likely to be a middle-aged megalomaniac who is weirdly obsessed with taking his shirt off.

Gordon Ramsay? Vladimir Putin. But otherwise yes, various expects think it might be a war thing, perhaps a revival of Russia’s programme to develop anti-satellite weapons, perhaps something completely new.

Like a Goldeneye pulse device that disables electrical devices? Or vials of nerve gas intended to prepare the Earth for its repopulation by a master race? Both unlikely, I am glad to say. It may not even be a weapon of any kind, but part of a programme to clean up space debris or repair or refuel satellites. It’s just a bit odd that Russia didn’t declare its launch.

Yes. Mind you, the US and China both already have the technology to shoot down satellites, and China launched some moderately suspicious objects of its own in July last year.

I see. So this might all be part of a perfectly ordinary build-up of military hardware in preparation for a massive war in space.

Surely the perfect place to have one, if you’re going to? I suppose so.

Do say: “Didn’t Russia also nearly kill Sandra Bullock?”

Don’t say: “That was in Gravity, and it was an accident. It was also made-up.”