Asteroid Day is celebrated every year on June 30 because it's the date of the Tunguska Event. This was one of the largest explosions to happen in modern times caused by an object from space entering the Earth's atmosphere. Read more about it in this NASA article: https://www.nasa.gov/history/115-years-ago-the-tunguska-asteroid-impact-event

Asteroid Day is a world-wide celebration and more information about it can be found on the event's website: https://asteroidday.org
One of the organizers is New Mexico's own Mark Boslough, who was a physicist at Sandia Labs and now works on planetary defense at Los Alamos Labs. Dr. Boslough did groundbreaking research into the power of an asteroid explosion over Chelyabinsk in 2013. Find out more about him here: https://asteroidday.org/people/dr-mark-boslough

At 1 p.m., a special showing of the planetarium program Incoming! describes asteroids and comets in detail, and current NASA missions to study them are mentioned in the shows introduction. This program can be seen with a planetarium admission. See more details and a preview video about the show here: https://nmnaturalhistory.org/visit/planetarium/incoming

NASA recently produced a documentary entitled Planetary Defenders which will be repeated continuously in the ViewSpace Theater during Asteroid Day. Journey alongside a team of astronomers and scientists attempting to track and monitor near-Earth asteroids, aiming to protect our planet from potential impacts. Some simple, asteroid-related activities and information can be found nearby the theater.