The United Nations ( UN ) hasannouncedit has officially recognized the Asteroid Day upshot , a spherical initiative to educate the world on the dangers asteroids pose to our satellite .
The decision was made by the UNGeneral Assembly , stick to an program by the founders of the bm – Danica Remy , Grig Richters , Apollo 9 astronaut Rusty Schweickart , and Queen guitar player and astrophysicist Dr Brian May . The recognition is similar to another UN - approved upshot , Earth Day , which assay to raise awareness of environmental security .
" We are extremely proud of the UN recognition as we founded Asteroid Day to provoke knowingness of the asteroid menace and the opportunity for the human species to combine around a single goal : protect our major planet from asteroid wallop , " the grouping said in astatement . " Asteroid impacts are the only natural cataclysm we know how to prevent if we , as the crew of Spaceship Earth , work on together towards a spherical solution . "
There have been two Asteroid mean solar day so far , being held on June 30 in 2015 and 2016 . This date marks the largest recorded impingement in Earth ’s chronicle , the Tunguska event in 1908 . On this day , a comet or asteroid explode in the air with up to 30 megaton of vitality , about 2,000 clock time more muscular than the atomic bomb that ravage Hiroshima in 1945 .
This explosion was over a for the most part unpeopled surface area in Tunguska , Siberia , with no reported last . But its power , flattening 2,000 square km ( 770 straight miles ) of forest , play up how destructive an asteroid encroachment could be if it were to occur today .
Asteroid Day 2015 view more than 500 events take place around the world , but the squad are now hopeful that with the UN ’s approval , they will be able to broadcast their message even further .
Asteroid Day will now be held annually on June 30 . Asteroid Day
" Many commonwealth are already taking Asteroid Day and the asteroid issue very earnestly , " Richters told IFLScience . " I am promising that having the UN recognize the day will get the other nations to take it more seriously , and we hope all nations will host upshot and elevate knowingness on International Asteroid Day 2017 and beyond . "
presently , we lie with of no sizable asteroids on a hit course with Earth . But many pocket-sized asteroids go unnoticed – inFebruary 2013 , one of these unseen rock-and-roll explode over Chelyabinsk in Russia , injuring hundreds .
Asteroid Day encourages nations to amend monitoring of asteroid , to ensure we can prepare for such events again . It also discuss how we might stop an asteroid from destroying our satellite in the future , although one delegacy to investigate this further , the European Space Agency ’s ( ESA ) Asteroid Impact Mission ( AIM ) , is presently face anuncertain time to come .
It ’s almost a sure thing that Earth will be threatened by a civilisation - ending asteroid in the hereafter , so we ’d do well to be quick for it .
