World Asteroid Day

World Asteroid Day

World Asteroid Day

On December 2016, the United Nations General Assembly marked June 30 as International Asteroid Day. This date coincides with the anniversary of the Tunguska impact event in Siberia in 1908. The objective of International Asteroid Day is to make the world aware of the dangers of planetary impact and to inform the people about crisis communication actions worldwide in the event of a near-earth disaster. The General Assembly resolution was based on a recommendation by the Group of Outer Space Researchers, supported by the Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (COPUOS).

Background

Near-Earth Objects (NEOs) represent a potential threat to our planet. A NEO is a planet or asteroid, which passes close to Earth’s orbit. According to NASA’s Center for NEO Studies, more than 16,000 asteroids have been discovered near Earth. The Tunguska asteroid, which hit the earth on June 30, 1908 in Siberia, Russian Federation, was the largest asteroid impact on earth in recorded history. On February 15, 2013, a giant fireball, traveling at 18.6 kilometers per second, entered the earth’s atmosphere and exploded in the atmosphere above Chelyabinsk. The estimated total impact force of the Chelyabinsk fireball, in kilotons of TNT bombs (the usual energy scale for fireballs) was 440 kilotons. The Chelyabinsk was an exceptionally large fireball.

The United Nations Space Agency (UNOOSA) has been working on NEOs for the past couple of years to establish that NEO impact risks are global issues. The global community needs to act collectively to ensure public safety from such impacts. Thus, on the proposal of the Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (COPUOS) in 2013, the International Asteroid Warning Network (IAWN) and the Space Mission Planning Advisory Group (SMPAG) were established in 2014.

The International Asteroid Warning Network (IAWN) uses well-defined networks and systems to help governments assess the potential consequences of an asteroid impact and support mitigation planning. The Space Mission Planning Advisory Group (SMPAG) is an interagency forum that identifies technologies needed for near-Earth object diversion and aims to build consensus on recommendations to save our planet from asteroid impact.

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