Asteroid Day, past, present, and future

Happy International Asteroid Day, the younger but paradoxically more established version of Apophis Day! I begin today's observance with Astronomy Magazine's The Real Reality Show: Asteroid Day.

Large asteroids have struck Earth in the past and they will in the future. Learn about Asteroid Day, a movement that recognizes research on the dangers of Near-Earth Asteroids.

I think that's the most complete story of the origin of Asteroid Day I can remember watching since I started observing it in 2016, which means I learned something new. Any day I learn something new is a good day!

Astronomy Magazine's video mentioned the asteroid that killed off the non-avian dinosaurs 66 million years ago, so I'm using that as an opportunity to have BBC Earth Science ask and answer What Exactly Killed The Dinosaurs?

Since the 1980s, scientists have believed that the main culprit for the dinosaur extinction was an asteroid. It came from the far reaches of the solar system, and was the size of Mount Everest.

I'm a paleontologist and attended graduate school when geologists debated and eventually accepted the asteroid strike as the cause of the terminal Cretaceous mass extinction, so this shaped my ideas about asteroid impacts. I don't particularly want humanity to go the way of the non-avian dinosaurs!

Moving from the past to the future, CTV News reported NASA scientists are studying a massive asteroid hurling towards Earth earlier this month.

NASA scientists are preparing for a massive asteroid that’s hurling towards Earth in the next few years. Joy Malbon explains.

Apophis's first close flyby is only five years away — wow and yikes!

Just so this entry qualifies as the Sunday entertainment feature, I'm sharing ‘Asteroid City’ Cast Asks NASA About OSIRIS-REx Asteroid Mission.

In September 2023, scientists with NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission will gather in the Utah desert for the arrival of the largest asteroid sample ever received on Earth. “Asteroid City” actors, including Scarlett Johansson, Jason Schwartzman, Maya Hawke, Rupert Friend, Jake Ryan and Jeffrey Wright, join NASA OSIRIS-REx sample expert Dr. Danny Glavin to discuss how studying the asteroid sample will give scientists insight into how the early solar system formed and how life began on Earth.

After a seven-year round trip journey that included mapping Bennu’s surface (a near-Earth asteroid that is no threat to our planet), identifying minerals and chemicals, and collecting a sample from the surface, OSIRIS-REx is on its way back to Earth with more than eight ounces of material.

I'm going to be snarky by repeating what I wrote about the film in 'Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning' and 'The Last of Us' lead nominees at the fourth Critics Choice Super Awards.

I have two things to say about Asteroid City. First, why this it here instead of Barbie? Second, the only thing it could win in this field is a game of "one of these things is not like the others."

I now have a third; I enjoyed the cast in this promotional video, although I think they did a better job of increasing the visibility of OSIRIS-REx than promoting the movie. Darn. Speaking of the asteroid return mission, it was one of the first missions shown in 2023 in space from NASA, ESA, Reuters, and PBS NewsHour. I'm looking forward to 2024 in space already.

That's a wrap for June's blogging. Stay tuned for Canada Day to begin July.