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June 30th, 2025Heads up…today is International Asteroid Day!
This impactful festivity is a global opportunity to raise public awareness about the asteroid impact hazard.
Also this Day is designed to inform the public about the crisis communication actions to be taken at the global level in case of a “credible” near-Earth object threat.
Asteroid Day was co-founded by astrophysicist and musician Brian May of the rock band Queen, along with Apollo 9 astronaut Rusty Schweickart, filmmaker Grig Richters, and B612 Foundation President Danica Remy.
Apollo 9 astronaut Rusty Schweickart.
Image credit: B612 Foundation/Danica Remy
Event horizon
For those fortunate to be in the area of Meteor Crater in Winslow, Arizona and Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona, a unique Asteroid Day celebration is being staged.
For details, go to: https://www.asteroiddayaz.com/
Flagstaff’s “Big Impact Event” will highlight the Meteor Crater, formed 50,000 years ago, representing the best preserved meteor impact site in the world.
Meteor Crater is 700 feet deep, more than an astronomical 4,000 feet across, and 2.4 miles in circumference.
Also, to locate the global events being organized, go to:
Image credit: USGS/American Museum of Natural History/Barringer Crater Company.
Giant hole
Thanks to the USGS, the American Museum of Natural History and the Barringer Crater Company, here’s the story on the famous Meteor Crater.
In 1903, a mining engineer named Daniel Barringer bet his entire fortune on a giant hole in the Arizona desert. He believed the geological feature near Winslow, Arizona wasn’t a volcano (as experts claimed).
Rather, Barringer saw the site as a massive meteorite impact. He was so convinced of his idea, he spent 26 years drilling for the giant iron space rock he thought was buried beneath it.
Everyone thought he was crazy. Scientists mocked him. He died broke.
Credit: NASA/Don Davis
Never too loud
But decades later, it was confirmed that Barringer was right about the impact. He just didn’t know that the meteorite had mostly vaporized on impact, leaving no huge chunk behind to locate.
It wasn’t until the 1960s—long after his death—that scientists finally proved it was a meteor crater using knowledge from nuclear blast studies.
Today, the site is called Barringer Crater, in honor of the man who saw the truth when no one else could.
“Sometimes, being right comes too late…but never too loud,” explains the USGS, the American Museum of Natural History and the Barringer Crater Company.
Eye of the illustrator captures asteroid Apophis near Earth.
Credit: Dan Durda – FIAAA
A sky full of “random forest”
Meanwhile, jump to today and a new development about using the latest machine learning technology to classify asteroids.
A machine learning application has been developed to detect Potentially Hazardous Asteroid (PHAs) and mitigate asteroid collision risk with the Earth by applying three classifiers: the K-Nearest Neighbors, Naïve Bayes, and Random Forest.
Real-time PHA detection
“Even though each classifier has its strengths, the data showed that the Random Forrest was better than the other two classifiers because it performed the most effective data interactions and disparity. The asteroid’s orbital parameter was essential to classify the PHA,” the research paper appearing the Journal of Physics: Conference Series concludes.
Furthermore, the research output helped to monitor the PHA easily. Real-time PHA detection is essential for an early warning system to protect the Earth from PHA, the research team explains.
For access to the paper – “Machine Learning Application to Classify Asteroids Based on Orbital Parameters” – go to:
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1742-6596/2866/1/012047/pdf
Posted in Space News
