Asteroid Day

On Asteroid Day, Flandrau is the place to discover rocks from space. The celebration will launch on international Asteroid Day  June 30, and continue through the weekend.

On Friday, we'll have a live stream of the Asteroid Day Live 24 hour broadcast all about asteroid science, organized by the nation of Luxembourg. Why Luxembourg? That small European country aims to become a world leader in asteroid mining, so they're giving their full support to Asteroid Day. The event at Flandrau will be just one of many asteroid related events happening around the globe.

On Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, Flandrau will offer special asteroid activities that educate and entertain, plus exhibits about asteroids, an array of meteorite specimens, and planetarium shows. Did you know that there are more than 17,000 Near Earth Objects (NEOs) that fly close to the Earth at some point in their orbit? All those NEOs are asteroids, and more than half of them were discovered by the Catalina Sky Survey, based right here at the University of Arizona!

In addition to general asteroid science, visitors will also learn about NASA's OSIRIS-REx asteroid sample return mission. The University of Arizona leads the mission. In September 2016, the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft launched on its seven-year journey. This groundbreaking mission will grab a sample from a primitive carbonaceous asteroid and bring it back to Earth for analysis. That sample will be a scientific time capsule from 4.5 billion years ago!

Activities, exhibits, planetarium shows, it all adds up to an asteroid extravaganza. Plus guests can enjoy Flandrau's other interactive science exhibits and inspiring planetarium shows. Beat the heat with cool science at Asteroid Day/Weekend.