June 30, 2015, marked the first , which organizers described as a 鈥済lobal awareness movement where people from around the world come together to learn about asteroids and what we can do to protect our planet鈥� from asteroid and comet impacts.
This year鈥檚 Asteroid Day has worldwide and online. Even Google is recognizing the event 鈥� you can see how when you search 鈥淎steroid Day.鈥�
June 30 is a significant date in the history of Earth impacts. On that date in 1908, the 鈥溾�� occurred over Tunguska, Russia. A stony (not icy) body between 165 and 260 feet in diameter entered the atmosphere at around 33,500 mph, creating a 4-megaton explosion, about 3 to 6 miles above the ground, more than 250 times more powerful than the atom bomb dropped on Hiroshima, according to earthsky.org.
devastated 830 square miles, and 80 million trees were flattened, according to NASA. This is the largest event with such impact in modern history and is why Asteroid Day is observed every year on June 30 as a reminder to the world that planetary defense against asteroids and comets matters.
The Chelyabinsk impact event in 2013 was historic because of the number of injuries and damage it caused to buildings 鈥� the most ever recorded from an asteroid or meteorite event. It was also the most documented asteroid explosion and meteorite fall ever with the number of videos, sound recordings, photographs, witness interviews and the recovery process of meteorites.
Chelyabinsk also improved our knowledge of smaller than a kilometer. These smaller asteroids like Chelyabinsk may be a greater hazard for damage than previously thought. In December 2018, an event with 40% of the energy release of Chelyabinsk took place over , as reported by BBC, reaffirming that such events happen more often than we would like.
Efforts by the , , the and the continue to improve the detection of asteroids and develop a defensive capability.
Advances in planetary defense
There have been some recent highlights in planetary defense that have significantly improved Earth’s ability to detect and deflect an asteroid.
The Vera Rubin Observatory is now operational and capable of discovering millions of new asteroids. During its inaugural 鈥�First Look鈥� last summer, 2,104 new asteroids were .
The James Webb Space Telescope has made discoveries about our and .
Citizen scientists recently using data from the Hubble Space Telescope.
NASA established a .
Interagency exercises, including held in Maryland, are testing real world scenarios and responses regularly.
, approved in 2021, that is designed specifically for finding asteroids 鈥� especially those near the sun and difficult to spot by telescopes 鈥� like Chelyabinsk.聽 Principal Investigator Dr. Amy Mainzer told 海角精品黑料 last June, “We鈥檙e excited to ramp up work on the spacecraft bus starting this fall in preparation for launch in September 2027.鈥�
successfully changed the orbit of an asteroid in September 2022.
The European Space Agency’s is scheduled to arrive at the DART target system in November, where it will study the results of humanity’s first asteroid-deflection test.
According to the space agency’s website, 鈥淎s part of the world鈥檚 first test of asteroid deflection, Hera will perform a detailed post-impact survey of the target asteroid, Dimorphos 鈥� the orbiting moonlet of a binary asteroid system known as Dimorphos. Now that NASA鈥檚 DART mission has impacted the moonlet, Hera will turn the grand-scale experiment into a well-understood and repeatable planetary defense technique.鈥�
A worldwide community of citizen astronomers, working with the , are also participating in planetary defense by making real time observations using telescopes made by . Anyone with a telescope can participate as well.
One final thought:
鈥淭he dinosaurs are dead because they didn鈥檛 have telescopes or a space program.鈥�
I use this phrase of mine to remind audiences why planetary defense is important. The dinosaurs disappeared after about 66 million years ago.
The cosmic clock is ticking.
If we need a reminder, we got one just last weekend when a large asteroid passed by earth.
Asteroid Day 鈥� become part of the movement.
Follow聽Greg Redfern鈥檚聽 to keep up with the latest news in astronomy and space exploration.
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