Halloween Asteroid 2015 TB145 to Fly Past Earth at Safe Distance

Posted on October 31, 2015

Halloween Asteroid 2015 TB145 will fly past the Earth today at a safe distance. NASA says the asteroid - or dead comet - will be farther out than the moon's orbit during its closest approach at 1:05 p.m. EDT today, October 31. The 1,300-foot-wide (400-meter) asteroid has received nicknames like "Spooky" and "Giant Pumpkin" for its Halloween arrival.

NASA even notes the asteroid's skull shaped appearance in a tweet and an Instagram post. The above image was was generated using radar data collected by the National Science Foundation's 1,000-foot (305-meter) Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico:

Dead comet that will safely zip by Earth on Oct 31 looks eerie like a skull: https://t.co/8bq4UBrFO9 #HappyHalloween pic.twitter.com/gICZTSLcZr
— NASA (@NASA) October 30, 2015

Kelly Fast, IRTF program scientist at NASA Headquarters and and acting program manager for NASA's NEO Observations Program, says in a statement, "The IRTF data may indicate that the object might be a dead comet, but in the Arecibo images it appears to have donned a skull costume for its Halloween flyby."

The asteroid was first discovered on October 10th by the University of Hawaii's Pan-STARRS-1 (Panoramic Survey Telescope and Rapid Response System) on Haleakala, Maui. NASA says the gravitational influence of TB145 is so minute it will have no detectable effect on the moon or anything on Earth.

Paul Chodas, manager of the Center for Near Earth Object Studies at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, says in a statement, "The trajectory of 2015 TB145 is well understood. At the point of closest approach, it will be no closer than about 300,000 miles -- 480,000 kilometers or 1.3 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."

NASA says the asteroid will be close enough that it will be a real treat for astronomers. Lance Benner, of JPL, who leads NASA's asteroid radar research program, says, "The close approach of 2015 TB145 at about 1.3 times the distance of the moon's orbit, coupled with its size, suggests it will be one of the best asteroids for radar imaging we'll see for several years. We plan to test a new capability to obtain radar images with two-meter resolution for the first time and hope to see unprecedented levels of detail."

Take a look:

SPACE