International Asteroid Day was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in December 2016 to mark the anniversary of the Tunguska impact over Siberia, Russian Federation (30^th June 1908), and thus to raise public awareness about the possibility of an asteroid impact with Earth, and the necessity to monitor them.

Noteworthy, the General Assembly’s decision to adopt this Day was made based on a proposal in this sense sustained by the Association of Space Explorers, which was endorsed by the Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (this organization is also known as COPUOS).

As a matter of fact the so called “Near-Earth Objects” (NEOs) represent potentially catastrophic threats to our planet. NEO can be an asteroid or comet, which passes close to the Earth’s orbit. This is why it is necessary to monitoring these objects. According to NASA’s Center for NEO Studies, there are over 16000 Near Earth Asteroids discovered and some of them represent a serious threat to Earth. The impact occurred in 1908, the “Tunguska asteroid event” in Siberia, was the Earth’s largest asteroid impact in recorded history.