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Halloween Asteroid (Eerily Skull-Shaped) Just Flew By at 70,000 MPH (Video) (Video)
31 Oct 15
The “Halloween Asteroid” just flew by Earth at 70,000 MPH and I could almost feel the breeze in my hair. Thankfully no deep impact! (Coincidence with its spooky shape? I think NOT!, what about you?)
Asteroid 2015 TB145 / Arecibo Sees an Eerie Skull Passing Over Halloween Skies
The Halloween Asteroid passed us by on the last day of October 2015. Asteroid 2015 TB145 has been dubbed as the “Halloween Asteroid” for two reasons, one of which involves its rather eerie shape.
Just when you thought Halloween couldn’t get any scarier, a giant skull-shaped asteroid flew by our Earth. The huge asteroid, officially labeled as “2015 TB145” is 600 meters in size and had a close encounter with our planet. According to NASA, the asteroid came closest to earth on October 31, perhaps to commemorate Halloween.
Scientists from the Planetary Radar Group at the Arecibo Observatory, facility of the National Science Foundation (NSF), observed near-Earth asteroid 2015 TB145 on the eve of Halloween, October 30, 2015. The NASA-funded planetary radar system measured 2015 TB145 to be about 600 meters (1,968.5 feet) in diameter, which is much larger than expected, with a rotation of approximately 5 hours and velocity of 35 km per second.
Radar images obtained at the Arecibo Observatory appear to rotate clockwise, which is noticeable by the movement of bright features. “The bright and dark features are indication of surface irregularities. For example, the central dark feature may be a large circular depression, possibly an impact crater”, commented Dr. James Richardson, USRA Scientist in the Planetary Radar Group.
Halloween Asteroid Flies By Earth Today: Watch It Live Online
The newfound asteroid 2015 TB145 will buzz Earth 1:01 p.m. EDT (1701 GMT), passing by at a safe range of about 300,000 miles (480,000 kilometers), just beyond the orbit of the moon. The asteroid poses no threat of hitting Earth, but it does give astronomers a tantalizing chance to ping the space rock with radar to learn more about what it’s like.
Today at 1 p.m. EDT (1700 GMT), the online Slooh Community Observatory will host a free live webcast of asteroid 2015 TB145 to discuss the asteroid’s flyby, the “dangers of near-Earth asteroids, the potential fallout of an asteroid this size impacting the Earth or moon and try to understand why it took so long to discover,” according to a Slooh statement. You can go to Slooh.com to join and watch this broadcast live, as well as access Slooh’s library of past shows.
You can also watch the asteroid flyby webcast on Space.com, courtesy of Slooh. The webcast will be hosted by Slooh’s Paul Cox and Slooh astronomer Bob Berman.
NASA scientists have been tracking asteroid 2015 TB145 with optical telescopes and radar tools since the space rock was discovered on Oct. 10 by astronomers using the University of Hawaii’s Pan-STARRS 1 telescope. [Halloween Asteroid Flyby: A Guide for Observers]
“We are going to study it with optical, infrared and radar wavelengths,” Marina Brozovic, a research scientist with NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, said in avideo explaining the asteroid observation plan. The radar images of 2015 TB145 captured during the asteroid’s closest approach should offer the best views of the space rock.
Credit: National Astronomy and Ionosphere Center (Arecibo Observatory)
So far, observations on Friday (Oct. 30) using the Planetary Radar Group at the National Science Foundation’s Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico have revealed that the asteroid is about 1,968.5 feet (600 meters) wide, “which is larger than expected,” according to a statement from the National Astronomy and Ionosphere Center (NAIC), which runs the observatory.
The asteroid also rotates once every five hours, and is hurtling through space at a speed of about 78,293 mph (126,000 km/h), according to the NAIC statement on Facebook.
In addition to the Arecibo Observatory, NASA scientists will use the agency’s Goldstone Solar System Radar antenna in Goldstone, California to image asteroid 2015 TB145.
“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,” JPL scientist Lance Benner, who leads NASA’s asteroid radar research program, said in a statement. “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.”
The Halloween flyby will be the closest approach of an object as large as asteroid 2015 TB145 until 2027, when an asteroid even larger – the 2,600-foot (800 m) object called 1999 AN10 – will pass Earth at a range of 238,000 miles (383,023 km), or about the same distance between the Earth and moon.
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