Asteroid Day was sanctioned by the United Nations and is a program of the Asteroid Foundation. Asteroid Day is a global awareness campaign where people from around the world come together to learn about asteroids and what we can do to protect our planet, families, communities, and future generations from future asteroid impacts. Asteroid Day will be held on the anniversary of the Tunguska event in
Siberia, the largest asteroid to impact Earth in recent history – an asteroid that devastated an area about the size of any major metropolitan area. Regionally organised large and small events will be held on Asteroid Day – from live concerts and community events, to lectures and other educational programmes, to support a movement calling for increased detection and mapping of asteroids. The Asteroid Day Declaration, calling for this action, has been signed by astronauts, scientists, artists and leaders in business and technology. Employing available technology to detect, track and defend our Earth from dangerous asteroid impacts is something we know how to do. This will assure the survival of generations to come as well as preserve our heritage and all that we have learned and created as a species. We have the knowledge as well as the technology to prevent these future catastrophic events. The fact that this initiative could save ALL the species on this planet that have evolved alongside us. We have a responsibility as custodians, not just for the planet, but for all the abundant life which inhabits it. Continuing to orbit our solar system without the knowledge of potentially dangerous asteroids in our orbital neighbourhood is equivalent to playing the odds in a game of Las Vegas roulette – only this time, we are betting our families, homes and indeed future generations. The probability of Earth being impacted in a random location by a 100-megaton asteroid in your lifetime is about the same as the probability of you being killed in an automobile accident. These odds on any individual day are small, yet few among us would drive a car without wearing a seat belt. The Asteroid Day Declaration calls for the discovery and tracking of 100,000 asteroids a year over the next ten years. In addition to protecting our planet, this increased capability will provide dramatically improved knowledge of our Solar System for scientific and other purposes. In December 2016 the United Nations General Assembly adopted resolution A/RES/71/90, declaring 30 June International Asteroid Day in order to "observe each year at the international level the anniversary of the Tunguska impact over Siberia, Russian Federation, on 30 June 1908, and to raise public awareness about the asteroid impact hazard." International Asteroid Day is to raise public awareness about the asteroid impact hazard and inform the public about the crisis communication actions to be taken at the global level in case of a credible near-Earth object threat.
