Have you ever looked up at night to see a shooting star? Even though they aren’t stars, but instead meteors, they are pretty spectacular to witness! Before they enter the atmosphere to become a meteor, these natural satellites would have spent the majority of their life in space as an asteroid. Today is Asteroid Day, internationally recognized by the United Nations as a day to bring awareness to the public about the role asteroids play in our solar system and the importance of tracking them to defend Earth from potential impacts. Co-founded in 2015 by Apollo 9 astronaut Rusty Schweickart and astrophysicist and the lead guitarist for Queen, Dr. Brian May (among others), Asteroid Day is on June 30 to remember the Siberia Tunguska event of 1908; the largest asteroid impact in recorded history. We certainly don’t want to end up like the dinosaurs and have the human race marked, as some would say, as “another one bites the dust”. Click on the links below to learn more!
