What is the ‘death comet,’ and when will it be here?

There’s so much cool stuff in outer space that nobody has to make anything up. But sometimes they can’t resist a little hyperbole.

Thus the new round of headlines about the “skull-shaped death comet.”

Three years ago, actual astronomers were excited about Asteroid 2015 TB145. It was going to come close (by astronomical standards): about 300,000 miles, or  1.3 times the distance from the Earth to the moon. And it was pretty big, about a quarter-mile across.

The excitement spilled over into some whimsy in a pair of press releases from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Because it was going to be closest to Earth on Halloween 2015, one release dubbed it “the Great Pumpkin,” and a subsequent one pointed out its “eerie resemblance to a skull.” (Bit of a stretch, but it has a smooth cranium-like structure and some eye-socket-like dents beneath.)

One piece of actual science played into the Halloween theme: TB145 was believed to be a “dead comet” — that is, a comet that has, over the eons, lost its “volatiles,” the ice and gases that produce the tail.

So: Halloween 2015. The asteroid came and went, as asteroids do.

Three years later, it’s coming back. It’s nowhere as close — 105 “Earth-moon distances,” rather than 1.3 —  and it’s nearest on Nov. 11, almost two weeks after Halloween. But there are these vaguely skull-like images, and “death comet” is irresistible.

Meanwhile, NASA has moved on to a fresh angle for this Halloween. There’s a newly discovered dwarf planet out there, and it’s nicknamed the Goblin.

Wow, look what scientists found lurking in the distant reaches of our solar system! Funded by a NASA grant, researchers discovered a dwarf planet – nicknamed “The Goblin” – located ~2.5 times further away from the Sun than Pluto. Via @CarnegieScience: https://t.co/gZwoQ5vWxO https://t.co/FpNIv185CN

— NASA (@NASA) October 2, 2018