Asteroid Day is a United Nations recognized holiday celebrated on June 30th. Why would the U N choose this holiday? To educate the public about the importance and dangers of asteroids in our universe.

Asteroids?

Asteroids are rocky objects that orbit within our solar system that are typically smaller than planets. They are remnants of materials used in forming our planets within our solar system. Most of the asteroids in our solar system are in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. Now it’s rare for life-ending asteroids to impact Earth (once per 2 million years), but there 17,000 meteorites that fall into Earth per year and 100 tons of dust hit Earth every day.

Importance

Asteroids have a significant role in our solar system as they carry life-creating resources and teach us how planets form, but they also pose a risk of seriously impacting Earth. The date June 30th is the anniversary of the Tunguska explosion, which took place on June 30th, 1908 when an asteroid struck Siberia, Russia. The impact would flatten trees, kill wildlife, and affect some people in an 830 square mile area. We were reminded of how dangerous asteroids were as it’s the largest impact event in recorded history. There have been mass extinction events where our only evidence is the impact craters like the Chicxulub crater in the Gulf of Mexico that killed the dinosaurs.