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For more information on humankind and asteroids, past and future: www.esa.int/Space_Safety...

Asteroid Day & eight other key dates in asteroid historyHappy Asteroid Day! Today is the annual UN-recognised global event to promote public education on asteroids and planetary defence. But why today, of all days? Read on to find out – and find out the ot...www.esa.int

Due to Apophis's flyby (as well as other milestones including the arrival of NASA's Psyche at its metal-rich asteroid target) 2029 will be the UN Year of Asteroids asteroids2029.org

Friday 13 April 2029 is when a once in 7000 year event takes place, as the cruise liner sized Apophis asteroid comes closer to Earth than our geostationary satellites - but ESA's Ramses mission will be flying along with it, and landing CubeSats!

Coming next: ESA's Hera mission for Planetary Defence will revist the Dimorphos asteroid impacted by NASA's DART this autumn, to discover what happened to it and sharpen our understanding of the kinetic impact method of planetary defence

Then this weekend, just as Hayabusa2 made its close encounter with Torifune, the China National Space Administration's Tainwen-2 drew close to the tiny 18-m Kamo’oalewa

In 2023 NASA's OSIRIS-REx spacecraft dropped off the most sizeable asteroid sample yet from asteroid Bennu. Like Hayabusa2, that spacecraft remains active

Next in 2022, NASA's DART mission impacted asteroid Dimorphos (deliberately!) to divert its orbit around the larger Didymos asteroid. The attempt was a success!

In 2020 successor mission Hayabusa2 returned more samples from asteroid Ryugu, and just this weekend passed by another asteroid, Torifune (pictured here).

Then in 2010 @JAXA's Hayabusa mission overcame grave onboard issues to return the first ever asteroid sample back to Earth...

Europe's first time eye-to-eye with an asteroid came in 2008, as ESA's Rosetta comet-chase passed by the Steins asteroid. A second encounter followed in 2010

A decade later came the first asteroid landing, by NASA's NEAR Shoemaker at their end of mission. The spacecraft carried on operating for 16 days after touching down...

Humankind's first close encounter with an asteroid in space did not occur until 1991, more than three decades into the space age...

& you can even build yourself a Hera cartoon spacecraft in LEGO... (full instructions included) esa.int/Space_Safety...

The UNOOSA Ramses panel, honoured with an introduction by Japanese ambassador Kaifu Atsushi, also included ESA Ramses mission manager Paolo Martino and Italian space agency ASI Director General Teodoro Valente. ASI is contributing one of the mission’s two CubeSats for close-up asteroid study

The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, JAXA, is an important partner with ESA on Ramses, providing its TIRI infrared surface imager, lightweight solar array wings and its H3 heavy lift vehicle – detailed by Makasi Fujimoto, Director General of JAXA’s science institute ISAS

Interested? Read the full article here 👉 www.esa.int/Space_Safety...

Fireballs and lightning, very, very frightening – or not!Millions of lightning flashes occur worldwide every day. To help track active storms, EUMETSAT’s Meteosat Third Generation (MTG) satellite has been monitoring Europe...www.esa.int