World Asteroid Day: Six facts that will reignite your curiosity about space

Remember the time when we were children and wanted nothing more than to be an astronaut We may have talked ourselves out of the ambition but that doesnrsquot mean we cannot still obsess over space and its various mysteries A lot of developments have been going on not only at the global level but also in India in the last few years Every year June 30 is celebrated as lsquoInternational Asteroid Dayrsquo by experts and space enthusiasts all around the world From why the United Nations decided to mark this day to how India has been actively discovering asteroids here are some interesting facts about the small rock bodies that orbit the sunHistory and significanceThe United Nations chose June 30 as lsquoInternational Asteroid Dayrsquo in December 2016 It coincides with the Tunguska event mdash a large explosion which occurred in Siberia Russia and flattened almost 2000 sq km of land mdashon June 30 in 1908 While the exact source of the explosion is unknown scientists believe it was either an asteroid or a comet which produced energy a thousand times more powerful than the atomic bomb dropped on HiroshimaThe day was designated to raise awareness about the hazard of asteroid impact and ldquoto inform the public about the crisis communication actions to be taken at the global level in case of a credible nearEarth object threatrdquo It also aims to use technology to detect and track nearEarth Asteroids that could possibly threaten the world population While initiating the use of technology the declaration also lays emphasis on accelerating the need for their discovery by hundredfoldA starstudded list of foundersWhile the UN declared the day it was also cofounded by the likes of theoretical physicist and cosmologist Stephen Hawking Apollo 9 astronaut Russell Louis Shweickart Queen guitarist and astrophysicist Brian May filmmaker Grigorij Richters and Danica Remy who is the president of the B612 FoundationFireball in 2013Almost 105 years later after the Tunguska event the Earth saw another explosion On February 15 2013 Russia experienced an explosion in Chelyabinsk only the second largest that the planet has witnessed in the last two centuries It was caused by a meteor called a superbolide which was 18 metres in diameter and weighed almost 11000 tonnes It produced as much as 440 kilotons of energy For comparison one kiloton is a unit of explosive power equivalent to 1000 tons of TNTAmong the planetsOn June 30 in 2017 the International Astronomical Union named the minor planet 248750 which was discovered by M Dawson as AsteroiddaySo near yet so far from MumbaiTwo students from the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay IITB discovered 2020QG the closest asteroid to fly by Earth without impacting it It was identified by Kunal Deshmukh and Kritti Sharma while working on a research project just hours after it passed close to the surface on August 16 They used data from the Zwicky Transient Facility ZTF in California US and were taking a look at the images from the day along with ChenYen Hsu at the National Central University in Taiwan when they made the discovery according to an Indian Express reportThe previous known asteroid to fly closest to Earth was called 2011 CQ1 and discovered by the Catalina Sky Survey in 2011Another brush with asteroids for IndiaIn March this year the International Astronomical Union said Indian students had discovered 18 new asteroids as a part of the International Asteroid Discovery Project It was conducted by Indian company Stem amp Space which educates children about astronomy and space with the help of the International Astronomical Search Collaboration IASCAround 150 students who were a part of the programme analysed astronomical data provided by the IASC which usually focuses on helping children discover asteroids or nearEarth Objects While they initially spotted 372 asteroids 18 were confirmed to be new and thus recordedEarlier this month six Indian scientists in Andhra Pradesh also discovered four nearEarth asteroids during a programme conducted by the All India Asteroid Search Programme through the IASC under a NASA grantAlso Read Political rapper Dule Rocker seeks crowdfunding to record anticaste album