It’s Asteroid Day!
On June 30, 1908 the largest asteroid impact in recent history occurred in Siberia. The asteroid hitting Earth was relatively small with about 40 meters across but devastated an unpopulated area about the size of a major metropolitan city.
In order to raise awareness and to learn about asteroids and what we can do to protect our planet Asteroid Day was created. Two years ago filmmaker Grigorij Richter and Dr. Brian May, astrophysicist and guitarist of the legendary band Queen, co-founded this annual event. So far over 100 astronauts, scientists, artists and technologists signed the Asteroid Day Declaration called “100X Declaration”.
The Declaration calls for increasing the asteroid discovery rate as we only have discovered about one percent of asteroids that have the potential to impact Earth. Early warning is essential for our planetary defense and at the current rate of discovery it would take more than a thousand years to find all the potentially threatening asteroids.
The event began as a scientifically-based declaration and grew to a global movement with more than 150 self-organized events around the globe. If you would like to find an event near you or sign the 100X Declaration, check out the link for Asteroid Day for further Information: http://asteroidday.org/
Happy Asteroid Day! Xandi
Image Credit: http://bit.ly/28ZCHiv