Space & Astronomy

Halloween asteroid looks like a human skull

By T.K. Randall
October 31, 2015 ·  39 comments

The eerie object bears an intriguing resemblance to a human skull. Image Credit: NASA First identified by astronomers only a few weeks ago, asteroid 2015 TB145 is proving to be rather seasonally appropriate - not only because it will reach its closest approach on Halloween but also because photographs of it have revealed that it happens to look remarkably like a human skull.

Measuring around 1,300ft across - the length of four football fields - the object is actually thought to be a dead comet and will pass within 300,000 miles of us - a distance further than that of the moon."The IRTF data may indicate that the object might be a dead comet, but in the Arecibo images it appears to have donned a skull costume for its Halloween flyby," said scientist Kelly Fast.

Fortunately however the object is unlikely to pose a risk to our planet anytime soon.

"It's not going to hit us and we will know its orbit really well so we can project it into the future and see whether or not it comes near the earth again and we've done that and it's not going to pose any hazard to the earth in certainly the next century," said NASA's Paul Chodas.

Source: Sky News | Comments (39)

Tags: Asteroid, Halloween, Skull