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International Asteroid Day: Know The History, Importance Of This Day

Hyderabad: International Asteroid Day (IAD) is observed on June 30 every year to raise public awareness of asteroids and the importance of defending Earth against potential threats from the asteroid belts. This day has been sanctioned by the United Nations. Asteroids are small, rocky objects that orbit the sun. Even though these rocky remnants are the leftovers from the formation of our solar system that occurred about 4.6 billion years ago, they still orbit around the sun like planets. There are lots of asteroids in our solar system, and most of them live in the main asteroid belt, which is a region between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. History and importance of International Asteroid Day The United Nations General Assembly (UNGA), on December 6, 2016, announced in the resolution A/71/492 that IAD will be observed annually on June 30 to raise public awareness about the asteroid impact hazard. Why June 30? The date June 30 was selected for the observation, as on this date in 1908, an asteroid hit the Tunguska, Siberia, Russia. It was the Earth's largest asteroid impact recorded in human history. This day encourages individuals to reflect upon the risk of impact of asteroids. The United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA) and other organisations such as the Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (COPUOS) and its Member States, the Space Mission Planning Advisory Group, and the International Asteroid Warning Network, all contribute towards the study of potential threats from asteroids. How are asteroids formed? In the early solar system, dust particles collided and formed large clumps known as planetesimals. These clumps grew by attracting more dust with their gravitational fields and became large enough to form the planets, while others became asteroids. Some of the collisions were slow enough that the asteroids merged, producing oddly shaped asteroids. Are all asteroids the same? All asteroids are not the same, as they are formed in different locations at different distances from the Sun. Here are a few ways that asteroids differ from each other: Asteroids have irregular shapes and are not all round like planets Few of them are hundreds of miles in diameter, and many are as small as pebbles Many asteroids are made up of different kinds of rocks, while some have clays or metals, such as nickel and iron Will an asteroid ever hit Earth, and how do they spot it? According to scientists present at the Center for Near-Earth Object Studies (CNEOS), it is highly unlikely that an asteroid large enough will cause widespread damage to Earth for the next 100 years or more. CNEOS is NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California that specialises in tracking asteroids and comets, calculating their orbits, and determining whether any of them are hazardous to Earth. When scientists spot an asteroid whose trajectory might take it close to Earth, they monitor it frequently and calculate the probability that it might collide with our planet. As they receive more observational data, they get a better picture of what could happen. To see whether an approaching object could hit Earth, researchers find out what an asteroid's orbit looks like using a technique called astrometry. This technique can accurately determine an object's orbit, down to only a few kilometres of uncertainty. But this technique needs accurate observational data taken over a long time. Asteroid 1981 EQ28 has been named (8068) vishnureddy by the International Astronomical Union in recognition of his contribution to planetary defence. Vishnu Reddy is a Professor of Planetary Sciences at the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory and the Director of the Space Safety, Security and Sustainability Center at the University of Arizona, in Tucson. He is a part of the Space Domain Awareness (SDA) program at the University of Arizona, where he has developed a network of optical and RF sensors to characterise orbital debris and space objects in cislunar space for the United States Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL). The 2005 EX296 asteroid has been named as (215884) Jayantmurthy. The Indian professor Jayant Murthy is known for his work in space missions, ultraviolet astronomy, and the interstellar medium. Previously catalogued as, the asteroid has now been designated as. Moreover, five planetary bodies have been named after Indians, such as Nobel Laureates Subramanya Chandrasekhar and CV Raman, Mathematician Srinivasa Ramanujan, Space Scientist Vikram Sarabhai, and Astronomer Manali Kallat Vainu Bappu.

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