Asteroid Day celebrated with live asteroid watch

Students from various parts of the country witnessed a live asteroid watch at the Nehru Planetarium on Friday in celebration of Asteroid Day organised by astronomy education organisation SPACE India.

Asteroid Day is observed each year on June 30 to commemorate the anniversary of 1908 Tunguska event in Siberia, the largest asteroid impact on the Earth in recent history.

"Asteroid Day is a global awareness campaign where people come together to learn about asteroids, their impact hazard, and what we can do to protect our planet from future asteroid impacts," said SPACE India in a statement.

SPACE India aids students to find asteroids in outer space under the educational outreach programme All India Asteroid Search Campaign (AIASC).

Through this campaign, students have made confirmed discoveries of various 'main belt asteroids' and important observations that contribute to the NASA Near-Earth Object Program.

In AIASC 2017, students will access the real-time data from the 'Pan Starrs' (The Panoramic Survey Telescope and Rapid Response System) Telescope, located at Hawaii, US, to survey the sky to look for asteroids, comets and near-earth objects.

--IANS

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