The IAC will participate tomorrow in International Asteroid Day

Logotipo del “Día Internacional del Asteroide” (Asteroid Day).
Logotipo del “Día Internacional del Asteroide” (Asteroid Day).
Advertised on

The Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC) will join, tomorrow, June 30th, in  "Asteroid Day". In this initiative, announced last year by the United Nations Organization (UN), research centres, observatories and universities throughout the world will be involved in outreach artivities with the aim of raising public consciousness about the danger of asteroid impacts and to raise the profile of research into asteroids.

This year Julia de León, a researcher at the IAC and a specialist in the characterization of both nearby asteroids and those of the main Asteroid Belt, as well as a scientist on the Nasa mission OSIRIS-REx for the study of an old astroid, will participate in "Asteroid Day Live". For 24 hours a number of specialist panels, with astronauts, astronomers, other scientists, and special guests, will make live connections from agencies in different parts of the world (JAXA, NASA; ESA, and  Luxembourg) and will offer commentaries on asteroid research. Julia de León will take part from Luxembourg in the panel led by the physicist and popularizer on the BBC Brian Cox, and the general public will be able to participate askin question in real time via the social networks.

Miquel Serra-Ricart, another IAC researcher, expert in asteroids and other Solar System objects, as well as manager of the Teide Observatory (Izaña, Tenerife), will take part in a free activity for the general public in the Planetarium of Castellon. During the day there wil be five lecturers, who will make up a panel to answer questions put to them by the public. Miquel Serra-Ricart will present "Cazasteroides", an app for cellphones which will allow people to detect asteroids from images obtained with telescopes, and to collaborate in monitoring of these objects by the public. It has been designed by the IAC and the Polytehcnic University of Madrid.(UPM), and funded by the Spanish Foundation for Science and Technology (FECYT, of the Ministry of Economics, Industry, and Competitivity.

Last year the United Nations announced that June 30th would be "Asteroid ¨Day" in memory of the Tunguska event, when an asteroid crashed into the atmospehre in 1908, causing a powerful explosion which devastated wide areas of forest in Sibera (Russia). "Asteroid Day" is being supported bny scientists (including several Nobel laureates) artists, and well known organizations such as the Royal Astronomical Society (of London), the European Space Agency (ESA), Astronomers without Borders, th California Academy of Science, the Space Foundation, and the Virtual Telescope project, among others.

More information:

News type
Press release
Scope
Observatorios de Canarias
General public
Communications media

It may interest you

  • Magnetar surrounded by the nebula responsible for the radio emission associated with some FRBs
    Press release
    Grantecan helps solve the mystery behind some of the Universe's most powerful radio bursts
    A new international study, using observations from the Gran Telescopio Canarias at the Roque de los Muchachos Observatory on La Palma, has identified a plasma bubble as the source of the persistent emission observed in some of the so-called fast radio bursts (FRBs), one of the most powerful and unknown cosmic events in the Universe. The data also allow researchers to constrain the nature of the “engine” powering these mysterious sources. The results are published today in Nature. Discovered just over a decade ago, fast radio bursts (FRBs) emit millisecond-long pulses that release an immense
    Advertised on
  • Taking office of the Director of the IAC, Valentín Martínez Pillet. Credit: Inés Bonet (IAC)
    Press release
    Valentin Martínez Pillet takes office as Director of the IAC
    The researcher Valentín Martínez Pillet has taken up his duties as Director of the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC) today, Monday 1st July, in a ceremony with the participation of the Secretary General for Research of the Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities Eva Ortega-Paíno, and the outgoing Director of the IAC, Rafael Rebolo. The new Director of the IAC, Valentín Martínez Pillet, takes up the challenge of running the centre in which he is a Research Professor with “a great sense of responsibility” and with the aim of mainaining and enhancing its scientific and
    Advertised on
  • Planetary nebula M57
    Press release
    The mystery of the fullerenes in space explained
    A pioneering study from the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC) which combines laboratory chemistry with astrophysics, has shown for the first time that grains of dust formed by carbon and hydrogen in a highly disordered state, known as HAC, can take part in the formation of fullerenes, carbon molecules which are of key importance for the development of life in the universe, and with potential applications in nanotechnology. The results are published as a Letter to the Editor in the prestigious journal Astronomy & Astrophysics. Fullerenes are carbon molecules which are very big
    Advertised on