Skull Shaped ‘Death Comet’ To Flyby Past Earth This November

A skull-shaped asteroid also being touted as the “death comet” is gearing up for a second flyby past Earth just after Halloween. Officially named 2015 TB145, the asteroid in question previously passed Earth back in October 2015 and is coming back for another visit this November.

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) had termed the asteroid as The Great Pumpkin because of its Halloween flyby three years ago. Notably, 2015 TB145 is being referred to as a “death comet” because of two reasons. The first is that it is believed to be a dead comet and the second is its skull shape, which was picked up on radar images from the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico.

Well, fortunately, the 2015 TB145 will pose no threat to life on Earth because it would be likely to burn up in the atmosphere and become a shooting star. The asteroid will zoom past Earth at a distance of 25 million miles on Nov. 11. Back In 2015, the same space rock flew past at a much closer distance of about 300,000 miles. For comparison, the average distance between Earth and the Moon is 238,855 miles.

As the asteroid is too small and too far away, it won’t be visible from the naked eye. It has a diameter of roughly 2,000 feet. It was discovered on Oct. 10, 2015, by the University of Hawaii’s Pan-STARRS-1 (Panoramic Survey Telescope and Rapid Response System) telescope high atop the dormant Haleakala volcano on the Hawaiian island of Maui.

The asteroid is set to come much closer later on in the 21st century. According to Thomas G. Muller, who is a researcher from the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics in Germany, its next encounter will be around Halloween’s day in the year 2088 when the object approaches Earth to a distance of about 20 lunar distances.