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Photo: Screen capture of the artist's rendering
An artist rendition of the 2015 TB145 asteroid, the so-called "Halloween asteroid" improves the cranial form of the rock. The asteroid was discovered shortly before his arrival on the day of Halloween 2015.
The "Halloween Asteroid" – a space rock resembling a smiling human skull – is back for another flyby of the Earth, but that does not scare anyone this time around.
Unlike 2015, when arriving at Halloween, the 2015 TB145 asteroid will be late this year – it will not go until November 11, according to NASA. And it will not be so close.
Three years ago, the sinister asteroid collided with the Earth at a distance of 301,986 miles. This year, it gives the planet a lot of clearance.
The TB145 will miss the planet 24 million miles, about a quarter of the distance between the Earth and the Sun, according to the NASA Jet Propulsion small body database.
Yet, it is as close as possible to most people alive today. The next time it will haunt the neighborhood will be 2082, when it will come in the 33 million miles of the planet.
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Fuzzy images of the small asteroid (approximately 2,047 feet – 625 meters wide) generated by radar data captured by the Arecibo Observatory of the National Science Foundation in Puerto Rico in 2015 revealed a roughly spherical rock an area dark that could be a mouth.
But the higher-resolution images taken later in 2015 did not show the same macabre features.
The Halloween asteroid was discovered on October 10, 2015 by the Pan-STARRS-1 telescope (panoramic telescope and rapid response system) of the University of Hawaii at Haleakala, on the Island of Maui. This image seemed to reveal indentations giving the asteroid similar characteristics to those of the skull.
Because of its greater distance from the Earth this time around, it's impossible to tell what the rock looks like now.
NASA scientists suspect that the asteroid is a dead comet, a star that has lost its tail of ice debris after too many trips around the sun.
One thing they know for sure, is that it does not present any danger to the earthlings.
But if you really want to worry about close asteroid encounters, there is always 99942 Apophis.
On April 13, 2029, the asteroid – named after the Egyptian god of evil – will buzz the Earth, barely missing 23,239 miles, according to the Max-Planck-Institut für extraterrestrische.
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