Cosmic Halloween Treat: Giant Asteroid To Whiz Past Earth On October 31

With Halloween just around the corner, NASA has announced that earthlings are going to get a special cosmic treat: an asteroid is going to whiz past earth on October 31, and it is going to do so at an unusually high speed.

According to Telegraph, NASA spotted the giant asteroid, titled 2015 TB145, a fortnight ago and expects it to miss Earth by a whisker, traveling at an electric speed of 78,000 mph as it flies by our planet. This will be the closest an asteroid will come to collision since 2006, and NASA expects the rare occurrence to not take place again at least for another decade.

“This is the closest approach by a known object this large until 1999 AN10 approaches within 1 lunar distance in August 2027,” NASA said.

Usually, NASA is able to tell if an asteroid is to fly past Earth well in advance, but on this occasion, the extreme eccentricity of its orbit has meant the space agency could not decipher the asteroid’s movement up until two weeks before Halloween, the day when it is going to be closest to earth’s surface. “The asteroid is on an extremely eccentric and a high inclination orbit,” NASA officials confirmed.

The asteroid will fly past at a distance of 310,000 miles, and though it may seem like a huge figure, it is a close shave for earthlings as far as asteroids are concerned, according to the space agency. Remarkably, this is not the first time that a giant asteroid is about to graze past earth’s surface this month. On October 10, Asteroid 86666 flew past Earth at a distance of 15 million miles, but that is more than 50 times the proximity between earth and the Halloween asteroid, according to ITV.

In other words, 2015 TB145 may be a lot more scary than any of the other asteroids that have crossed paths with Earth in the last several decades.

Large #asteroid will #TrickOrTreat Earth on #Halloween http://t.co/quLKXSREa2 pic.twitter.com/5cuZt7miSU

— AmericasMostHaunted (@amhaunted) October 19, 2015

Announcing its approach, however, NASA also said that the asteroid has not been classified as “potentially hazardous,” but its mere size, 300 meters in diameter, and extreme proximity to earth, means one cannot ever be too certain. If an asteroid of such a size and traveling at such breakneck speed was to hit Earth, the force generated could be enough to wipe out a few small countries, if not the entire world. Under the present conditions, however, we should not be worried.

“WISE and radar observations discussed above show that the diameter is probably at least 300 meters, so it’s large enough to be ‘potentially hazardous’ even though it isn’t classified as such.”

Though the asteroid will not be visible to the naked eye, star-gazers and space enthusiasts will be pleased to know that they can catch a glimpse of 2015 TB145 as it whizzes past Earth on Halloween using high-end telescopes. If you are not too busy trick-or-treating, that is.

Naturally, the approaching asteroid has been cause for much amusement on the internet. It seems every time an event of major cosmic consequence takes place, doomsayers come out in full voice, and now that the asteroid is approaching earth on Halloween of all days, it only ends up spicing up the internet forums. Redditors have already begun weaving prophecies around 2015 TB145, with some pointing out that it could be a sign of our end times. Don’t let yourself be too worried if somebody does label October 31 as doomsday. It’s just Halloween with an asteroid twist.

[Photo by Wilerson S Andrade/Flickr under CC BY-SA 2.0 license]