The guitarist, songwriter and founding member of British rock band Queen is also an astrophysicist. On Wednesday, Brian May joined scientists and astronauts in a joint press conference in San Francisco and London to present the 100x Asteroid Declaration and to announce Asteroid Day. The former calls for an acceleration of the detection and monitoring of near-Earth asteroids, while the latter will take place on June 30, 2015, to raise awareness for planetary defense.

The declaration’s signatories—who number more than 100 and include scientists, business leaders and artists from around the globe—strive “to raise awareness about protecting and preserving life on our planet by preventing future asteroid impacts.”

“There are probably a million objects out there that could wipe out a city,” said May, speaking from the London Science Museum alongside Lord Martin Rees, a cosmologist and astrophysicist who has been the United Kingdom’s astronomer royal since 1995. Of those million objects, we’ve tracked perhaps 1 percent, May said.

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