International Asteroid Day

The United Natioons General Assembly designates June 30th as International Asteroids Day, in order to raise public awareness about the Asteroid impact hazard and to inform the public about the crisis of Near earth asteroids.  

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A warning for a monstrous asteroid that is expected to rocket past Earth on Wednesday.

NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory has issued a warning for a monstrous asteroid that is expected to rocket past Earth on Wednesday.

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115 Years Ago: The Tunguska Asteroid Impact Event.

On June 30, 1908, an asteroid plunged into Earth's atmosphere and exploded in the skies over Siberia. Local eyewitnesses 

115 Years Ago: The Tunguska Asteroid Impact Event - NASA

On June 30, 1908, an asteroid plunged into Earth’s atmosphere and exploded in the skies over Siberia. Local eyewitnesses in the sparsely pop

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The Tunguska explosion, 115 years ago today.

 On today's date 115 years ago, the largest asteroid impact in recorded history struck on a warm summer morning in Siberia, Russia.

The Tunguska explosion, 115 years ago today

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Learn more about the Tunguska event in 1908.

in 1908, a highly destructive meteoroid explosion that occurred in a remote area of Siberia. The Tunguska event explained

The Tunguska Event

Learn more about the Tunguska event in 1908, a highly destructive meteoroid explosion that occurred in a remote area of Siberia

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Towards educating the public about the latest asteroid science, missions.

Watch page - AD 2022

Asteroid Day live is the only broadcast dedicated towards educating the public about the latest asteroid science, missions and what is happening with the new space ecosystem. Checkout the schedule below to watch this year’s LIVE broadcast from BCE studio Luxembourg!

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Discovery and Tracking.

When it comes to asteroids, the old adage ‘the more you look, the more you find’ is certainly true. Recent years have seen an unprecedented rise in the number of asteroids being discovered and tracked, many of them are near-Earth asteroids and objects. In this panel we will look at the new facilities that are revealing the asteroid population as never before.

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Asteroid Characterization.

It’s one thing knowing that an asteroid is up there, but what if you want to do something to that asteroid? Then you have to know what it’s made of, how it’s put together, how it’s going to react to you landing on it, or trying to knock it off course from a collision with the Earth. This is where characterization comes on. This panel is all about how we get to know what the asteroids really are, both from ground-based telescopes and spacecraft.

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Space sustainability

Sustainability in space goes hand in hand with technological development. We need to decide what we want to do in space, and then decide how best to do that in a sustainable way. In this panel, we will discuss some of the next steps toward sustainable space resource utilization, and space sustainability in general.

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Future technology and Missions.

Never before have so many space missions been devoted to asteroids. Some are already in flight, some are preparing to launch, others are still on the drawing board. This panel is about all of them, and about the kinds of technologies that are being developed to enable the next generation of future asteroid missions.

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The overarching theme of Asteroid Day LIVE 2022 is ‘small is beautiful’.

We chose it for a number of reasons. Compared to the planets, asteroids are indeed small but to the eyes of those who study them, those boulder-strewn surfaces are beautiful to see close-up. We will hear from representatives of two missions, JAXA’s Hayabusa2 and NASA’s OSIRIS-REx that are dedicated to bringing back small but beautiful samples of asteroids to Earth. Indeed, Hayabusa2 has already deposited its samples of asteroid Ryugu.

ASTEROID DAY LIVE

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A new study finds DART's impact could be stronger than expected.

A new simulation of NASA's Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission suggests that rather than leaving a crater behind, the DART impactor could severely deform the small asteroid it will collide with.

NASA's Double Asteroid Redirection Test is an ambitious mission that will test the viability of using a "kinetic impactor" to deflect an asteroid heading toward Earth. ("Kinetic impactor" in this case means slamming a spacecraft into the rock.) DART launched aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket in November 2021 and is scheduled to arrive at its target, the binary near-Earth asteroid Didymos and its moonlet, Dimorphos, in September. 

DART will impact Dimorphos at around 4.1 miles per second (6.6 km/s), or 14,760 mph (23,760 kph), which mission scientists hope will cause the moonlet's orbital speed to change by a fraction of a millimeter per second, just enough to alter its orbit around the larger asteroid. While Dimorphos and Didymos pose no threat to Earth, they are perfect candidates to test the kinetic impactor concept so that if an asteroid ever were discovered on a collision course with our planet, NASA would have a viable option for planetary defense. It's the agency's first dedicated planetary defense mission.

NASA's DART asteroid mission might completely deform small moonlet

A new study finds DART's impact could be stronger than expected.

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Research into asteroids and planetary defence has never been greater.

Asteroid Day makes its return to Luxembourg in person for Asteroid Day LIVE 2022 following two years of living entirely in the virtual realm. Asteroid experts will converge on Luxembourg to take part in a packed four-hour programme of panels and one-on-one interviews. And there is so much to talk about. Research into asteroids and planetary defence has never been greater.

ASTEROID DAY LIVE

There are more asteroid missions flying or planned than ever before, and in October this year, NASA will make history by conducting the first deflection test of an asteroid with their DART mission. The backbone of the Asteroid Day LIVE broadcast are the panels. This year, we have seven that cover the entire range of asteroid science and research.

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The Origin of the Solar System.

The asteroids hold secrets about how our solar system formed. Most were part of ‘failed planets’, which began growing alongside the surviving planets of today, but were shattered by violent collisions in the early Solar System. This panel is about the scientific investigation of the asteroids and the way it can reveal the cataclysmic details of planet formation.

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Space resources.

The more we learn about the near-Earth asteroids and the Moon, the more we realise they are rich in mineral and other resources. To efficiently explore and utilise space, we must learn how to extract and use these resources effectively. In this panel, we will discuss this vital topic and the role of the Luxembourg Space Agency, and the European Space Resources Innovation Centre (ESRIC).

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Defence and Mitigation

On rare occasions, asteroids can pose a threat to Earth. This is because their orbits are constantly evolving and so eventually one will find itself on a collision course with our planet. To safeguard against this, we are developing mitigation strategies. This panel is about the state of the art in asteroid deflection.

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Watching the skies for large asteroids that could pose a hazard to the Earth is a global endeavor.

Planetary Defense Exercise Uses Apophis as Hazardous Asteroid Stand-In

Over 100 participants from 18 countries – including NASA scientists and the agency’s NEOWISE mission – took part in the international exerci

To test their operational readiness, the international planetary defense community will sometimes use a real asteroid’s close approach as a mock encounter with a “new” potentially hazardous asteroid. The lessons learned could limit, or even prevent, global devastation should the scenario play out for real in the future.

NASA's DART mission launched to Didymos at 1:21 a.m. EST on Nov. 24, 2021, on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. DART will intercept the smaller moonlet asteroid between Sept. 26 and Oct. 1, 2022. The asteroid will be about 6.8 million miles (11 million kilometers) from Earth at the time of DART's impact.

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First space test of the kinetic impactor method for deflecting an asteroid.

In the fall of 2022, the DART spacecraft will collide head-on with the smaller asteroid in the Didymos system in the first space test of the kinetic impactor method for deflecting an asteroid.

This illustration of the DART spacecraft shows the Roll Out Solar Arrays (ROSA) extended. Each of the two ROSA arrays is 8.6 meters by 2.3 meters.

Several days before that collision, DART will release a small CubeSat known as LICIACube, developed by the Agenzia Spaziale Italiana. 

LICIACube will trail behind DART, flying past Dimorphos about three minutes after impact, imaging any crater or impact plume as well as the opposite side, which will provide clues to the moonlet’s structure and composition