PRESS KIT CONTENTS About Asteroid Day Asteroid Day Press Materials Press Release ASE Statement Quotes about Asteroid Day Graphics & Photos Supporters Videos Asteroid Day Partners 100X Declaration & Signatories Approved Quotes for Publication Quotes in different languages Profiles of Founders
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Press release has been translated into Spanish, Italian, German, Hebrew and French, including astronaut quotes. JOIN US ON SOCIAL MEDIA: TWITTER: @asteroidday #AsteroidDay Facebook: www.facebook.com/AsteroidDay CONTACTS: Managing Director: Grigorij Richters (
[email protected]); Germany: +4915225672398 Media: Diane Murphy (
[email protected]); US: +1/3106588756 MEDIA MATERIALS: Visit the Asteroid Day Website Newsroom: http://asteroidday.org/newsroom/ UN ANNOUNCEMENT VIDEO (original UN video): http://webtv.un.org/watch/general-assembly-53rd-plenary-meeting-71st-session/523794229400 1
UN PHOTOS + VIDEOS (Romanian astronaut Dorin Prunariu presents Asteroid Day): https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B26qPfEwFxyCS0VIbWwyWDI2VE0 Read the UN press release: http://www.unis.unvienna.org/unis/en/pressrels/2016/unisos478.html
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ABOUT ASTEROID DAY: The International Asteroid Day is observed each year at the international level the anniversary of the Tunguska impact over Siberia, Russia, on 30 June 1908 and to raise public awareness about the asteroid impact hazard. Events include lectures, films, expert science presentations and educational workshops, organised by museums, research institutes, government agencies, universities, astronomers, filmmakers and concerned citizens.
Asteroid Day 2015, London: From left to right: Lewis Dartnell, Richard Crowther, Sir Crispin Tickell, Brian May, Grig Richters, Alan Fitzsimmons, Stuart Clark and Debbie Lewis HISTORY OF ASTEROID DAY: In February 2014, Dr. Brian May, astrophysicist and famed guitarist for the rock band QUEEN, began working with Grigorij Richters, the director of a new film titled 51 Degrees North, a fictional story of an asteroid impact on London and the resulting human condition. May composed the music for the film and suggested that Richters preview it at Starmus, an event organized by Dr. Garik Israelian and attended by esteemed astrophysicists, scientists and artists, including Stephen Hawking, Richard Dawkins and Rick Wakeman. The result was the beginning of discussions that would lead to the launch of Asteroid Day in 2014. To insure that the nascent idea of a movement had global support, May then introduced Richters to the B612 Foundation, an American-based non-profit advocacy organization created to protect the world from dangerous asteroids through early detection. B612 co-founders Apollo 9 Astronaut Rusty Schweickart and three-time Astronaut Dr. Ed Lu, along with Danica Remy, Chief Operations Officer, brought to Asteroid Day a network of 1
PRESS KIT planetary defense specialists and global contacts. The four official co-founders of Asteroid Day are: Dr Brian May, Danica Remy, Grigorij Richters and Rusty Schweickart. The Asteroid Day co-founders, along with Dr. Ed Lu, Astronaut Tom Jones and Dr. Mark Boslough, a well-respected asteroid scientist, drafted the 100X Asteroid Declaration. Early signers of the 100X Asteroid Declaration were global leaders such as Lord Martin Rees, Astronomer Royal of the UK, musical artist Peter Gabriel and other planetary defense experts. The co-founders subsequently sought the endorsement of the 100X Asteroid Declaration by over 100 astronauts, nobel laureates, entertainers and business leaders around the world. The public announcement of the 100X Asteroid Declaration and claiming of June 30th as Asteroid Day began the journey towards a global grassroots campaign with Millions of supporters across the globe. A key element of Asteroid Day 2015 was the the 100X Declaration, calling for the detection of 100,000 asteroids a year to be tracked over the next 10 years. The declaration which is available on the Asteroid Day website, has been signed by hundreds of esteemed scientists, astronauts, and leaders in business and the arts, as well as over 40,000 private citizens calling for global action. For more information, please visit http://www.asteroidday.org/
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PRESS KIT PRESS RELEASE - DECEMBER 07, 2016: UNITED NATIONS PROCLAIMS JUNE 30 AS INTERNATIONAL ASTEROID DAY NEW YORK, NEW YORK (December 07, 2016) -- The founders of Asteroid Day announced today that the United Nations General Assembly has officially recognized the annual event, declaring “30 June International Asteroid Day to observe each year at the international level the anniversary of the Tunguska impact over Siberia, Russia, on 30 June 1908 and to raise public awareness about the asteroid impact hazard.” The UN Press release can be found at: http://www.unis.unvienna.org/unis/en/pressrels/2016/unisos478.html "We are extremely proud of the UN recognition as we founded Asteroid Day to raise awareness of the asteroid threat and the opportunity for the human species to unite around a single goal: protect our planet from asteroid impacts,” stated co-founders Dr. Brian May, Danica Remy, Grig Richters and Rusty Schweickart. “Asteroid impacts are the only natural disaster we know how to prevent if we, as the crew of Spaceship Earth work together towards a global solution.” Early in 2016, the ASE Committee on Near-Earth Objects introduced a formal recommendation in Vienna with the UN Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (COPUOS) that the General Assembly adopt Asteroid Day as an annual global event. The UN’s Committee has had a long-standing interest in improving its knowledge of the distribution and characterization of potentially hazardous near-Earth objects, and in predicting and mitigating the threat of a NEO impact, especially for developing nations through its two advisory bodies the International Asteroid Warning Network (IAWN) and the Space Mission Planning Advisory Group (SMPAG). Through the leadership of the Association of Space Explorers (ASE), an international organization of astronauts, cosmonauts and taikonauts, and B612, a private organisation to protect Earth from asteroid impacts, the first Asteroid Day was held on June 30, 2015. During Asteroid Day 2016, more than 500 asteroid-related educational events were held in 72 countries, involving more than 150,000 participants and reaching over one million people through “live” online activities.
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PRESS KIT At the official announcement of Asteroid Day on December 03, 2014, the organization launched the 100X Asteroid Declaration, which contained three principal goals: 1. Employ available technology to detect and track Near Earth Asteroids that threaten human populations via governments and private and philanthropic organisations. 2. A rapid hundredfold (100x) acceleration of the discovery and tracking of Near Earth Asteroids to 100,000 per year within the next ten years. 3. Global adoption of Asteroid Day, heightening awareness of the asteroid hazard and our efforts to prevent impacts, on June 30, 2015. Today, the Declaration has been signed by hundreds of scientists and planetary experts, leaders in business and government and more than 40,000 private citizens. With the UN recognition, one of our three proposed actions has been fulfilled just two years after our initial launch. Dr. Ed Lu, three time Shuttle Astronaut and CEO, B612: "The United Nations declaration of Asteroid Day is a testament to the importance of the international work by scientists and engineers around the world to protect the Earth from asteroid impacts. If we do our job properly, the Earth should never be hit again by another large asteroid!" Jan Wörner, ESA Director General: “This international recognition shows how the subject of asteroids is becoming more and more of a global endeavour.” Romanian Astronaut Dumitru-Dorin Prunariu: “ASE is proud of the important role it has played in originating, promoting, and supporting Asteroid Day and seeing it now recognized by the United Nations.” British astronaut Tim Peake: “All the best for Asteroid Day. We only have one Earth so let’s do all we can to protect it.” About Asteroid Day Asteroid Day is a global movement to increase public awareness of potential asteroid collisions and the means to protect Earth. It was co-founded in 2014, by Dr. Brian May, astrophysicist and lead guitarist for the rock band Queen, Danica Remy, B612 Chief Operations Officer, Apollo astronaut Rusty Schweickart, and German filmmaker Grig Richters. Asteroid Day is held on 30 June each year to mark Earth’s largest asteroid impact in recorded history, the Siberia Tunguska event, which devastated over 2000 square km, the size of any major metropolitan city. 4
PRESS KIT ASE STATEMENT: Association of Space Explorers December 07, 2016
Houston, Texas, USA
The Association of Space Explorers is very pleased with the United Nations General Assembly recognition of Asteroid Day as an annual event each June 30. Asteroid Day, already a growing, worldwide public education initiative about the hazard posed to Earth by asteroid impacts--and what we together can do to prevent them--will now reach even larger global audiences. This year, on June 30, the anniversary of the Tunguska Event, the largest recorded impact in human history, hundreds of thousands of people at more than 500 events in 72 countries participated in Asteroid Day; those events were streamed to 1.3 million more online. ASE is proud of the important role it has played in originating, promoting, and supporting Asteroid Day and seeing it recognized now by the United Nations. Early in 2016, our ASE Committee on Near-Earth Objects introduced a formal recommendation in Vienna with the UN Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (COPUOS) that the General Assembly adopt Asteroid Day as an annual global event. We again briefed the COPUOS in June, which forwarded our proposal at the United Nations General Assembly. And now the General Assembly has endorsed our recommendation, included in the COPUOS report to that body; starting in 2017, Asteroid Day will be an annual event encouraged and supported by the United Nations. Our hope at ASE is that Asteroid Day will meet with increasing success in its effort to inform and enroll the public in addressing the asteroid hazard through greater international efforts to search for hazardous asteroids, and to develop and test technologies to shift a rogue asteroid from a collision course with Earth. To that end, we urge readers to join local Asteroid Day activities, at www.AsteroidDay.org. We at ASE continue to work with and support Asteroid Day and the UN-supported discussions aimed at preventing a future impact. --The Association of Space Explorers Committee on Near-Earth Objects The Association of Space Explorers (www.space-explorers.org) is the worldwide, professional society of astronauts and cosmonauts. For more information on ASE’s Near-Earth Object impact prevention efforts, visit: http://www.space-explorers.org/committees/NEO/neo.html QUOTES ABOUT ASTEROID DAY: 5
PRESS KIT Asteroid Day co-founders, Dr. Brian May, Danica Remy, Grig Richters and Rusty Schweickart: "Today the United Nations General Assembly has officially declared June 30 as the International Asteroid Day. We founded the annual event to raise awareness of the asteroid threat and opportunity to unite the human species behind a simple goal: Protect our planet from asteroid impacts. It is the only natural disaster we know how to prevent if we work together towards a global solution. We are all crew members of spaceship Earth. We hope you will join us." Jan Woerner, ESA Director General: “This international recognition shows how the subject of asteroids is becoming more and more of a global endeavour,” Professor Stephen Hawking: “One of the major threats to intelligent life in our universe is a high probability of an asteroid colliding with inhabitable planets.” Brian May, astrophysicist, guitarist and songwriter for QUEEN, Co-Founder, Asteroid Day. “Our goal is to dedicate one day each year to learn about asteroids, the origins of our universe, and to support the resources necessary to see, track and deflect dangerous asteroids from Earth’s orbital path,” explains “Asteroids are a natural disaster we know how to prevent.” Ed Lu, astronaut and founder of B612: "The United Nations declaration of Asteroid Day is a testament to the importance of the international work by scientists and engineers around the world to protect the Earth from asteroid impacts. If we do our job properly, the Earth should never be hit again by another large asteroid impact!"
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PRESS KIT FOUNDING PARTNERS OF ASTEROID DAY: The lead Founding Partners of Asteroid Day are the Association of Space Explores and B612 Foundation, they were joined by the European Space Agency (ESA), Discovery Science,, California Academy of Sciences, The Planetary Society, Natural History Museum of Vienna, and Starmus, which all will be hosting events in 2017. MEDIA CONTACT: Diane Murphy (
[email protected]); Tel: +1/310.658.8756 ASTEROID DAY SOCIAL MEDIA: Join Asteroid Day on Twitter: @ asteroidday #AsteroidDay and on Facebook: www.facebook.com/AsteroidDay ***Help us get word out by sending us your tweets and by retweeting! LOGOS, VIDEO & PHOTOS: LOGOS: http://asteroidday.org/ad-logo/ PHOTOS: https://www.flickr.com/photos/asteroidday/albums VIDEO ARCHIVE: 2016 LAUNCH / Feb 9: Archived Press Conference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=udtvQqjuHJg Pre-Recorded video messages (for download): https://vimeo.com/asteroidday/videos ASTEROID DAY ARCHIVED VIDEO: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B26qPfEwFxyCbE4yNllfaUU3LUk Offering: ● Asteroid Day 2016 Video ● Asteroid Day 2016 (February 9 Press Conference) (pre-recorded) ● Asteroid Day 2015 videos by 100X Signers ● Videos from previous Asteroid Day announcements ● Videos from Asteroid Day 2015 events
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PRESS KIT ASTEROID DAY PARTNERS: Association of Space Explorers Astronomers Without Borders Astronomy Magazine Astronomy Now Magazine B612 California Academy of Sciences Discovery Science European Space Agency (ESA) Films United Natural History Museum of Vienna NEOShield-2 The Côte d’Azur Observatory Romanian Space Agency Royal Astronomical Society The Planetary Society The Virtual Telescope Seattle Museum of Flight Space Foundation Starmus Universe Awareness
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MEDIA PARTNERS: Astronomy Magazine Discovery Science ASTEROID DAY EVENTS: All Asteroid Day events are being independently organised locally by museums, research institutes, government agencies, universities, space and astronomy organisations, and planetariums, by filmmakers, astronauts, scientific experts and concerned citizens. Events range from expert science presentations and educational workshops to films and other community events. In 2016, over 500 events were held across 72 countries with over 150,000 participants.
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PRESS KIT 100X ASTEROID DECLARATION: Available for public signature at: www.asteroidday.org/declaration As scientists and citizens, we strive to solve humanity’s greatest challenges to safeguard our families and quality of life on Earth in the future. Asteroids impact Earth: such events, without intervention, will cause great harm to our societies, communities and families around the globe. Unlike other natural disasters, we know how to prevent asteroid impacts. There are a million asteroids in our solar system that have the potential to strike Earth and destroy a city, yet we have discovered less than 10,000 — just one percent — of them. We have the technology to change that situation. Therefore, we, the undersigned, call for the following action: 1. Employ available technology to detect and track Near Earth Asteroids that threaten human populations via governments and private and philanthropic organisations. 2. A rapid hundredfold (100x) acceleration of the discovery and tracking of Near Earth Asteroids to 100,000 per year within the next ten years. 3. Global adoption of Asteroid Day, heightening awareness of the asteroid hazard and our efforts to prevent impacts, on June 30. By signing below, you declare that you share the concerns of this esteemed community of astronauts, scientists, business leaders, artists and concerned citizens to raise awareness about protecting and preserving life on our planet by preventing future asteroid impacts. The 100X Declaration was publicly introduced by Lord Martin Rees in London on 3 December 2014. Today, there are more than 40,000 signatures. Check out the list of Signers and join us! See: http://www.asteroidday.org/signatories-list/
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APPROVED QUOTES FOR PUBLICATION: *Note to Media: All Asteroid Day Expert Panel members are profiled on the Asteroid Day website: http://asteroidday.org/asteroid-day-expert-panel/ Asteroid Day co-founders Brian May (Queen guitarist, astrophysicist), Danica Remy (COO of B612), Grig Richters (Filmmaker) and Rusty Schweickart (Apollo 9 astronaut): "Today the United Nations General Assembly has officially declared June 30 as the International Asteroid Day. We founded the annual event to raise awareness of the asteroid threat and opportunity to unite the human species behind a simple goal: Protect our planet from asteroid impacts. It is the only natural disaster we know how to prevent if we work together towards a global solution. We are all crew members of spaceship Earth. We hope you will join us." *Ed Lu, three time astronaut and CEO of B612 who co-invented the Gravity Tractor, a proposed technique for asteroid deflection: "The United Nations declaration of Asteroid Day is a testament to the importance of the international work by scientists and engineers around the world to protect the Earth from asteroid impacts. If we do our job properly, the Earth should never be hit again by another large asteroid!" Romanian astronaut Dorin Prunariu: “Asteroid Day is an annual event to inform and educate the general public on asteroids hazard and on the activities that are undertaken in connection with this hazard to protect our planet and its population. Recognition of this event by the UN General Assembly on the proposal of ASE comes as a natural and necessary consequence that complements other initiatives related to NEO taken by the UN and by other national and international organizations.” Etienne Schneider, Deputy Prime Minister of Luxembourg: “We are delighted to see the United Nations join in promoting awareness of Asteroids as an opportunity for mankind and for future peaceful exploration.” *Apollo 9 Astronaut Rusty Schweickart: “If we can track the trajectories of asteroids and monitor their movement in our solar system , then we can know if they are on a path to impact Earth,” said “If we find them early enough, we can move them out of Earth’s orbit thus preventing any kind of major natural disaster.” Stephen Hawking: “One of the major threats to intelligent life in our universe is the high probability of an asteroid colliding with inhabited planets.” British astronaut Tim Peake: “All the best for Asteroid Day. We only have one Earth so let’s do all we can to protect it.” 11
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Lord Martin Rees, Astronomer Royal, UK: “The ancients were correct in their belief that the heavens and the motion of astronomical bodies affect life on Earth - just not in the way they imagined. Sometimes those heavenly bodies run into Earth. This is why we must make it our mission to find asteroids before they find us.” Tom Jones, Scientist, Author, Pilot and Veteran NASA Astronaut with four Shuttle missions and three spacewalks: “Asteroid Day is a great opportunity to invite the public to learn more about the hazard from near-Earth asteroids, and to invite their support of international efforts to discover and head off rogue asteroids. We study asteroids both to protect the Earth and to protect valuable resources for future exploration toward Mars.” Dante Lauretta, Professor of Planetary Science, University of Arizona: “Asteroid represents humanity’s growing awareness of the opportunities and hazards that exist in near-Earth space. Our future depends on our ability to identify, characterize, and ultimately travel to these asteroids.” Peter Brown, Professor, University of Western Ontario: “Asteroid Day reminds us we are literally connected with the rest of the Universe Earth is not an isolated System.” Mark Boslough, Technologist, Sandia National Labs: “We need to study asteroids because they are hazardous, but also because they are scientifically interesting, potential resources, and exciting objects for space exploration.” Debbie Lewis, Specialist, Risk Management and Disaster Management, Axiom: “We need to study asteroids because it is a case of ‘when, not if,’ therefore we need to more fully and better understand the risk they pose to humanity and to prepare effective contingency plans, for civil protection, in the unlikely event that mitigation methods for asteroid deflection are not successful.” Sigrid Close, Assistant Professor of Astronautics, Stanford University: “By studying asteroids, we can understand how hypervelocity objects ablate, ionize and form plasma that then interacts and influences the background atmosphere and ionosphere.” Vishnu Reddy, Lunar and Planetary Laboratory, University of No. Dakota: “ Life will probably begin and end with an asteroid impact.” Eric Christensen, Director, Catalina Sky Survey: “Studying asteroids allows us to look both backward and forward in time; they inform our understanding of the birth and evolution of the Solar System, and potential future impacts present an incentive to catalog and characterize the risk they pose to human populations.” Patrick Michel, Lead Researcher, CNRS: “Considered the building blocks of our planets, asteroids provide us with tantalizing glimpses of the earliest nature of our solar system. 12
PRESS KIT Moreover, asteroid collisions have to be seen as representing an important threat against human efforts in space, which in an extreme case, could even lead to the destruction of our biosphere. Thus, asteroids matter much to scientists, to explorers, and to the future of humanity.” Christian Koeberl, Cosmochemist, University of Vienna: “Asteroids (and their messenger to Earth, the meteorites) are witnesses of the origin of the solar system and tel us about physical and chemical processes at that time. Asteroid Day helps to educate us about impacts on Earth and elsewhere - their scientific importance and the danger associated with them.” Lynne Jones, Research Associate, LSST: “ Asteroids are remnants of the planet formation processes in our Solar System and by studying their orbital distribution and chemical composition, we can learn about how planets formed and evolved over the history of the Solar System. Discovery Science: “Discovery Science, the only global network dedicated entirely to the wonders of science, is proud have a media partnership with Asteroid Day, in an effort to increase awareness about the hazards of asteroids and what can be done to protect humankind from potential future impacts. Quotes in Spanish, Hebrew, German, French and Italian: German astronaut Alexander Gerst (German): "Wird ein Asteroid wieder die Erde treffen? Die Frage ist nicht "ob?", sondern "wann?". Eine andere Frage lautet: Werden wir dann in der Lage sein, uns davor zu schützen? Diese Frage kann die Raumfahrt auch beantworten." Alan Harris, German Aerospace Center (DLR) Senior Scientist and NEOShield Project Coordinator (German): “Aktuell sind erst annähernd 15000 erdnahe Objekte (near-Earth objects: NEO; Asteroiden und Kometen) entdeckt worden und jeden Tag werden circa 4 weitere gefunden. Während wir ungefähr wissen wie viele Objekte pro Größenklasse sich in erdnahen Umlaufbahnen bewegen wissen wir bisher nur sehr wenig über ihre physikalische Eigenschaften, wie ihre Zusammensetzung, ihre Dichte oder Struktur. Befristete Projekte wie NEOShield-2 helfen uns zu verstehen wie wir einen Asteroiden optimal ablenken können aber wir müssen immer noch viel mehr lernen, nicht nur über NEOs im Allgemeinen sondern auch über die technische Machbarkeit von Abwehrmethoden und deren Leistungsfähigkeit. Kurz gesagt: wir brauchen eine langfristige, international koordinierte Strategie zum Schutz der Menschen und zur Abwehr von Einschlägen erdnaher Objekte auf der Erde.”
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PRESS KIT US astronaut Garrett Reisman and first Jewish crewmember on the ISS (Hebrew): “שלום ובוקר טוב לשעבר אסטרונאוט בנאסא וחבר הצוות היהודי הראשון על תחנת החלל הבינלאומית, אני גארט רייסמן. אני שמח להצטרף אליכם באמצעות ההודעה הזו ואני נרגש מאוד מהתפשטות יום האסטרואיד בעולם ואני ממש שמח שלכולכם בישראל כלכך אכפת מהנושא הזה ואתם מוכנים להתערב ולעזור לנו להגן על הכוכב השברירי שלנו. יום המודעות לאסטרואידים ולסכנה, ביוני כיום האסטרואיד הבינלאומי30 האו"ם הכריז זה עתה על ה שהם מהווים לאנושות ולהגנה על כדור הארץ. זה נהדר שגם ישראל מציינת את היום הזה יחד עם כולנו בכל העולם. ביוני וקחו חלק ביום האסטרואיד בישראל30 אז הצטרפו אלינו ב. שוב שלום ואני מקווה לראות את כולכם בישראל בקרוב מאוד. ביי ביי Spanish astronaut Pedro Duque (Spanish): “Todos los astronautas estamos concienciados del riesgo de impacto de la Tierra con asteroides. Por eso nuestra Asociación de Exploradores del espacio apoya decididamente el desarrollo de tecnologías operacionales para poderlos detectar y desviar. Es para mí una gran satisfacción ver como el día de hoy la Asamblea General de las Naciones Unidas ha declarado el 30 de Junio como "Día Internacional del Asteroide", reconociendo el valor del evento anual de concienciación de la sociedad que venimos celebrando desde 2014.” Italian astronaut Luca Parmitano (Italian): “La minaccia da parte degli asteroidi è un problema internazionale che dovrebbe essere affrontato globalmente, interessando ad ogni livello tutte le nazioni coinvolte nell’avventura spaziale: dalle istituzioni educative ai centri di ricerca e alle agenzie spaziali.”
PROFILES OF ASTEROID DAY CO-FOUNDERS: Click on the links to access their biographies. Dr. Brian May, Queen guitarist and astrophysicist Danica Remy, B612 Chief Operations Officer Grig Richters, German filmmaker Rusty Schweickart, Apollo 9 astronaut
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