World Asteroid Day 2023: Check history, significance and all you need to know

World Asteroid Day 2023: Every year on June 30, we observe this day to commemorate the anniversary of the Tunguska event in 1908 when a meteor air burst decimated approximately 2,000 sq km of pine forest in central Siberia. This day aims to provide awareness about the impact of asteroids and to inform the public about the crisis it can cause like in communication actions to be taken at a global level in case of credible near-Earth object (NOEs) catastrophic threat to the planet.

Here's everything you need to know about the World Asteroid Day 2023:

Date: June 30

Establishment year: 2015

Adoption by the UN: 2016

Aim: To spread awareness about asteroids. Creating plans to safeguard the Earth from potential asteroid impacts.

World Asteroid Day 2023: History

The day was cofounded in 2014, a year after the 2013 Chelyabinsk meteor air burst by renowned cosmologist Stephen Hawking, Rusty Schweickart- Apollo 9 astronaut and astrophysicist Brian May with some other members.

The extraordinarily large fireball, travelling at a speed of 18.6 km per second, entered the atmosphere and disintegrated in the skies over Russia's Chelyabinsk on 15 February 2013.

The United States Space Agency NASA said that the asteroid was estimated at 18 metres wide and weighed 11,000 tonnes.

As cited by Mint, the total impact energy of the Chelyabinsk Fireball was 440 kilotonnes.

Three years later, the United Nations General Assembly in 2016 announced that June 30 will be known as the World Asteroid Day.

World Asteroid Day 2023: Significance

June 30, this date serves as a reminder of the destructing impacts of asteroids can have on Earth. It highlights the 1908 incident of the Tunguska event and the recorded event of the 2013 Chelyabinsk event.

The day aims to raise awareness about asteroids and all precautions and steps that can be taken to protect the Earth, its families, communities and future generations from a catastrophic event.

An asteroid is a small, rocky object that orbits the sun. They are formed at the same time as other objects in our solar system, these space rocks can give a lot of information about the planets and even about their history.

These tiny bits sometimes have flown through our atmosphere and landed on the Earth's surface.

The 2013 Chelyabinsk Fall

The Chelyabinsk meteor was a superbolide that entered the Earth's atmosphere and landed in Russia. It exploded in a metro air burst. The object approached Earth in an undetected way and created panic among residents. Over 1,400 people were seriously injured.

WATCH WION LIVE HERE