International Asteroid Day

Tags: Important Days

International Asteroid Day is observed on 30 June every year by the United Nations.

• The resolution to celebrate International Asteroid Day was presented to the United Nations in 2016.

• The day is marked to raise awareness about the devastating effects when an asteroid hits the Earth.

• International Asteroid Day was held on June 30, 1908, the anniversary of the Siberian Tunguska event.

• Tunguska incident

• This event is the largest known eruption recorded in human history.

• The Tunguska event is a very large explosion that is believed to be caused by a comet or meteor.

• On June 30, 1908, the Russian people in Lake Baikal saw a pillar of blue light moving across the sky like the sun.

• Ten minutes later they heard sounds like artillery fire.

• The power of this explosion is estimated to be between 3 and 30 megatons of TNT.

• What is Asteroid?

• Asteroids are celestial bodies that move around the universe.

• They are smaller in size than planets and larger than meteorites.

• Ceres was the first asteroid to be discovered by Giuseppe Piazzi in 1819.

• There are many asteroids in our solar system. Most of those asteroids are found in the Main Asteroid Belt. This main asteroid belt is located in the region between the orbits of the planets Mars and Jupiter.