Launching an Annual Asteroid Day

In late February, the Association of Space Explorers, working with the United Nations in Vienna, proposed that the UN declare that Asteroid Day be held as an annual, global event. Asteroid Day, first held in 2015, heightens public awareness of the asteroid impact hazard, educates society on what we humans can do with space technology to prevent a future disaster, and calls for stepping up the discovery rate of possibly hazardous asteroids. 

 

At the Vienna session of the UN’s Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (through its Science and Technical Subcommittee), our ASE representative Dorin Prunariu delivered our statement on the importance of Asteroid Day as a global, UN-recognized event. His presentation to the member state delegates was well-received. The Association of Space Explorers submitted a Conference Room Paper to the member state delegates calling for recognition of Asteroid Day, and it’s posted here. 

Here is one excerpt from our Paper:

In view of the successful results of last year’s Asteroid Day, and the goals and
plans for Asteroid Day 2016 and beyond, the Association of Space Explorers asks
the member States of the Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space to support
Asteroid Day’s goals, and to propose that the United Nations General Assembly at
its 71st session in 2016 declare the International Asteroid Day as [an] annual global
observance. The purpose of such an Asteroid Day declaration is to promote and
raise each year at the international level the awareness of NEO hazards, the
potential for space science and technology to protect humanity against future
damaging impacts, and the need to act together to end the threat of an asteroid
collision with Earth. Because 30 June was the date of the largest impact of an
asteroid on Earth in historical times, we propose that the United Nations General
Assembly resolve that the International Asteroid Day be celebrated and promoted
annually on that date.

We anticipate that the full Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space, meeting in June, will adopt the report of its Committee. If so, October’s gathering of the General Assembly in New York should see the approval of the document, and thus UN recognition of Asteroid Day as an annual, global event. 

The Association of Space Explorers Committee on Near-Earth Objects thanks Dorin (celebrating the 35th anniversary of the first Romanian space mission (his) this year) and the Asteroid Day organizers Grig Richter and Danica Remy for making the work in Vienna possible. So this June 30, check with AsteroidDay.org to see and attend the closest Asteroid Day event, or better yet, plan to organize and hold one of your own. We’re sure to continue our ASE support of this year’s events with astronauts attending many of the Asteroid Day gatherings. See you on June 30.