Over the last few years, Halloween has become a holiday that almost everyone looks forward to celebrating — and it seems like the galaxy wants in on that as well. According to Space.com, a skull “Halloween asteroid” will come really close to hitting Earth right around the scariest day of the year.
The asteroid has been given the nickname “the Halloween Asteroid” because of the date it’s set to fly by Earth, and also because of its appearance. It genuinely looks like a skeleton! The asteroid flew by Earth before, about three years ago, and images captured of it show a giant rock that really does look similar to a skull at certain angles. An artist drew an image of the rock based on the video of it, and the grooves in the rock look like two sunken eyes, a nose, and a mouth.
It would be amusing if it wasn’t also legitimately terrifying.
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The Halloween Asteroid, which is officially called Asteroid 2015 TB145, always seems to come around in October… which is pretty spooky. It was first spotted on October 10th, 2015 by the Panoramic Survey Telescope and Rapid Response System (Pan-STARRS) at Hawaii’s Haleakala Observatory. It then flew by Earth on October 31st, 2015, which shows that this thing is really all about timing. At that point, it was slightly outside of the moon’s orbit and was considered a safe distance away.
This year, the Halloween Asteroid is set to make a pass by our planet yet again, although it won’t be on Halloween this time. Astronomers expect to see it in mid-November. Although it will be passing pretty close to the Earth, it won’t be as close as last time. Still, astronomers are excited to get a good look at it — especially since the asteroid is roughly 2,100 feet wide and is very hard to see. One astrophysicist told Space.com that it’s very dark, being “only slightly more reflective than charcoal.”
In fact, this creepy asteroid might actually be an extinct comet that lost water and other volatile materials during its many journeys around the sun. That’s one of the reasons scientists are hoping to get a good view of it this time around — that, and the fact that it won’t be seen near Earth again until 2088.
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Has this made anyone else even more excited for Halloween, or… is it just us?