Unlike last year's observation which was greatly affected by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, this year's Asteroid Day events will be held online worldwide. An Asteroid Day webpage complete with student activities, teachable moments, and guides about comets and asteroids has been set up by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
Asteroid Day's Short History
Asteroid Day celebrated annually on June 30th since its first observation in 2015, is a United Nations-sanctioned event that aims to raise public awareness on the risks of asteroid impacts.
According to the Asteroid Day website, its mission is to educate people about the opportunities and risks of asteroids by providing hosting events, educational resources, and regular communication with global audiences across multiple platforms.
June 30th is celebrated as Asteroid Day because of its significance in Earth's history of impacts.
Tunguska Event Explained
According to NASA, 111 years ago, a few dozen humans and hundred of reindeer witnessed an asteroid impact in Siberia, Russia that left a devastating explosion flattening roughly 500,000 acres of uninhabited forests, creating "glowing clouds", scorching the land, and producing numerous shock waves that were felt throughout the globe.
The events of June 30th, 1908 near the Stony Tunguska River continued to intrude and puzzle researchers and the public despite many newspapers claiming that the shock waves were due to volcanoes or a mining incident. These explanations were quickly ruled out due to a lack of physical evidence.
Researchers then concluded that the blast originated from a massive object colliding with the planet. On the other hand, not all evidence fit the researcher's theories, especially since no pictures of the supposed asteroid were found. Until investigators revisited the site in the 1920s.
David Morrison, a planetary science researcher from Ames says that Tunguska is the largest cosmic impact ever witnessed by modern humans. Adding that it had characteristics of the sort of impact we humans would have to protect against in the future.
Chelyabinsk Impact of 2013
Another notable impact event in recent history is dubbed as the Chelyabinsk Impact of 2013. It proved to be historic with the immense number of injuries and amount of damage to property, the most destruction caused by an asteroid/ meteorite event in recent history.
The event was also the most documented asteroid explosion due to the significant number of sound recordings, videos, photographs, witness interviews, and the recovery process linked with meteorites.
Chelyabinsk has significantly improved our knowledge of threats posed by asteroids that are smaller than a kilometer. Small asteroids pose a great threat to damage than what researchers previously thought.
In 2018, a greater impact event with roughly 40% of the energy released from the Chelyabinsk event over the Bering Sea reaffirmed researchers' suspicions on the event reports WTOP News.
The United Nations, in collaborations with NASA and other space organizations, are currently developing numerous defensive capabilities and improved detection devices that will help researchers survey millions of asteroids and assess their threat level before it makes contact with the Earth.
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