The asteroid we are talking about looks like a human skull when looked at from certain light conditions and it will fly by our planet just a bit after Halloween.
This asteroid has a more professional name which is Asteroid 2015 TB145, and its nickname is “dead comet” which no longer has all of its gases and ice. Because this asteroid has such a look and it flew past Earth for the first time on Halloween 2015 when NASA decided to call it “The Great Pumpkin.”
When it first flew past Earth in 2015, it was at a distance of just 300,000 miles according to the reports from Space.com. To be more familiar with the distances, our Earth is at 238,855 miles from the Moon.
The asteroid is known about since 10th of October 2015 when the Pan-STARRS-1 (Panoramic Survey Telescope and Rapid Response System) from University of Hawaii. It will do another flyby in November according to researchers. The difference is that this time it will be farther away than before.
The sizes of the asteroid based on measures conducted by researchers are 2,050 feet and 2,297 feet.
Last year a similar phenomenon happened with an asteroid named (441987) 2010 NY65 which is about the size of a skyscraper. It flew past our planet at a distance eight times bigger than the one between the moon and the earth. In the same year a massive space rock being 2.7 miles long, asteroid Florence passed by our planet at 18 lunar distances.
The Planetary Defense Coordination Office (PDCO) was opened in 2016 by NASA in order to make sure that every object near the Earth just stays there and will not be a threat to our beloved planet.
Juana loves to cover the tech and gaming industry, she always stays on the first row of CES conference and reports live from there.
