Spooky Asteroid to Zoom Past Earth on Halloween

“It’s frightening to think an asteroid this size, approaching so close to Earth, was discovered only 21 days before its closest approach, which just happens to be on Halloween”.

The asteroid, which is roughly the size of a scyscraper (about 1,542 feet in diameter), will fly by at a distance of 310,000 miles, which puts it just about 100,000 miles further away from us than the moon. With the help of the Pan-STARRS I telescope, scientists have been able to spot the asteroid, which is moving at unusually high speed of 78,000 miles per hour. Yeomans is a senior research scientist and manager of the Near-Earth Object Program Office at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Until October 10, the space agency didn’t know about 2015 TB145; more attention was on asteroid 2009 FD, which will pass within about 4 million miles of Earth on October 29.

In 2011, asteroid 2005 YU55 was the closest one that hovered and passed the Earth as it only flown 0.85 lunar distances. “Even though that is relatively close by celestial standards, it is expected to be fairly faint, so night-sky Earth observers would need at least a small telescope to view it”.

The big asteroid that will zoom past Earth on Halloween may actually be a comet, NASA researchers say.

NASA is planning to use multiple tools on Earth to take a look at 2015 TB145.

This asteroid is not only massive, with a diameter of up to 640 meters, but also extremely fast, zooming through space at 35 kilometers per second, 29 times faster than a high velocity rifle bullet.

Earlier, on June 30, UK’s Science Museum launched Asteroid Day which was a new venture aimed at raising awareness and funding safeguards for Earth from space rocks.

2015 TB145, informally known as the ‘Great Pumpkin, ‘ is a so-called near-Earth asteroid. A telescope will be needed to see the asteroid, though astronomers say that a “small telescope” may not be enough. The nature of its orbit could explain why scientists only discovered the asteroid a short time ago.