Our Solar System is swarm with 1000000 ofasteroids – rocky objects that are n’t large enough to be assort as planets – and they ’ve been smashing into Earth ever since the dawn of its creation . And if thedinosaurshave taught us anything , it ’s that these hit can be in earnest uncollectible news .
Asteroidsdon’t have to be big like that one to represent a threat , either : two year ago , one just 20 meters ( 65 feet ) wide shattered as it came hurtling through our atmosphere , triggering a shock wave that offend more than 1,000 the great unwashed in Russia . And while globally ruinous encroachment are rare , estimated to happen around every 100,000 twelvemonth , the fact is that we know far too little about the asteroids whir around our Solar System to become complacent .
This is whyAsteroid Daywas founded . It takes place on June 30 , the anniversary of the largest asteroid impingement in late history : Siberia ’s Tunguska event . With more than 50 public events worldwide and the creation of a powerful , mentation - provokingmovie , Asteroid Day hopes to boost worldwide awareness about these jolting world and gain support for a movement that name for their rise catching and charting . And beget involved can be as easy as stamping your name on the100x Asteroid Day Declaration , which has already been bless by a whole boniface of notable scientist and astronaut , including Brian May , Brian Cox , Bill Nye and Lord Martin Rees . Check out an awesome trailer of the film , which premieres tomorrow , here :
Alongside promote cognizance and Education Department , Asteroid Day ’s long - full term goal is to safeguard our satellite and the species that call it home by mapping all Near - Earth Objects ( NEOs ) that could potentially threaten Earth . To do this , their detection and tracking must increase a hundredfold , to100,000 each year , over the next decade .
“ If we can chase after the flight of asteroids and monitor their movement in our solar system , we can know if they are on a path to impact Earth , ” Apollo Astronaut Rusty Schweickart state in astatement . “ If we find them early enough , we can move them out of Earth ’s range – thus keep any kind of major innate catastrophe . ”
In theory , we do have the way to avoid any potentially wild asteroids , Asteroid Day science advisor secern IFLScience , but the problem is that the subsist methodology has not been test . Should a threat that could affect us within the next 5 years become evident , we really would n’t have much metre to get the engineering quick and be sure that it would mold . But by making more people cognisant of the issue , politician and the populace alike , then hopefully testing these deflectors will become higher on the agenda .
