Asteroid Day facts for kids
Quick facts for kids Asteroid Day |
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Asteroid Day logo
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| Observed by | Worldwide |
| Type | United Nations |
| Date | June 30 |
| Frequency | Annual |
| First time | 30 June 2015 |
Asteroid Day, also known as International Asteroid Day, is a special global event held every year on June 30th. This date marks the anniversary of a huge event that happened in 1908, called the Tunguska event. On that day, a space rock (a meteor) exploded in the air over Siberia, Russia. This explosion flattened a massive area of forest, about 2,150 square kilometers (which is like 830 square miles)!
Asteroid Day was started in 2014 by a group of important people. These included famous physicist Stephen Hawking, Apollo 9 astronaut Rusty Schweickart, filmmaker Grigorij Richters, and Brian May, who is a guitarist for the band Queen and also an astrophysicist (someone who studies space!). They wanted to create this day to help everyone learn more about asteroids. They also wanted to figure out how we can protect our planet Earth, our families, and our future from any possible asteroid impacts.
In 2016, the United Nations officially recognized Asteroid Day. This means it's now celebrated worldwide as an important day to think about asteroids and space safety.
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Protecting Earth: The 100X Declaration
In 2014, the people who started Asteroid Day created an important statement called the "100X Declaration." This declaration asks scientists, engineers, and anyone who cares about protecting Earth from asteroids to join their mission.
Did you know that over a million asteroids could potentially hit Earth? But so far, we've only found about one percent of them! The 100X Declaration wants to change this. It calls for finding and tracking 100,000 new asteroids every year for the next ten years. That's 100 times more than we currently find!
Key Goals of the Declaration
The declaration has three main goals:
- Finding and Tracking: Use all the technology we have to find and keep track of near-earth asteroids. These are asteroids that come close to our planet and could be a danger. Governments and other groups are working together on this.
- Speeding Up Discovery: Greatly increase how many near-Earth asteroids we find and track. The goal is to find 100,000 new ones each year within the next decade.
- Raising Awareness: Make sure everyone around the world knows about the risk of asteroid impacts. Asteroid Day on June 30th helps with this. Thanks to the United Nations, this goal is already being achieved globally!
Celebrating Asteroid Day Around the World
Since it began, Asteroid Day has become a truly global event! In its first five years, over 2,000 events took place in 78 different countries. Imagine that many people learning about space rocks!
Many astronauts and cosmonauts (space travelers) have also joined in the activities. The main idea behind all these events is to teach people about asteroids and why it's important to understand them.
Lots of famous science places and space agencies have participated. These include the Natural History Museum in Vienna, the American Natural History Museum, the California Academy of Sciences, the Science Museum in London, the European Space Agency, and the UK Space Agency. They all help organize fun and educational activities for people of all ages.
Asteroid Day and the United Nations
Asteroid Day became a truly international event thanks to the United Nations. In 2016, a Romanian astronaut named Dumitru Prunariu and a group called the Association of Space Explorers suggested to the UN that June 30th should be a special day for asteroids.
The UN liked the idea! After some discussions, the United Nations General Assembly officially approved it on December 6, 2016. This means that June 30th is now recognized worldwide as International Asteroid Day.
The UN declared this day to remember the 1908 Tunguska event in Siberia, Russian Federation. It also helps to teach everyone about the possible dangers of asteroids and how we can work together to protect our planet.
A Special Name in Space
To celebrate Asteroid Day, a small planet (also called a minor planet) was officially named "Asteroidday" in 2017. This was done by the International Astronomical Union, which is the official group that names objects in space. The minor planet's number is 248750.
