Scientists are affectionately calling the giant rock “Spooky” because the asteroid crept up on the world just three weeks ago. The fact that it will pass close to us on Halloween night makes the whole event a little creepy, but scientists are saying it won’t hit the Earth.
“We never even knew this giant mountain of a rock existed before October 10 … it’s usually a few months or a year in advance,” Andrew Fazekas, an astronomy columnist for National Geographic, told CTV News Channel on Sunday.
The asteroid’s official name is 2015 TB415, and it is 1,300 feet long. Its high velocity made it difficult to track. However, on October 10, astronomers using the Panoramic Survey Telescope & Rapid Response System (Pan-STARRS) at the University of Hawaii’s Institute for Astronomy finally pinned it down.
Believed to be a stray part of a comet, Spooky will come very close to Earth but never quite close enough to hit us say scientists. While it is rare for asteroids to get close, this one will be about 300,000 miles from us when it passes. That’s about 1.3 times the distance to the moon. The last asteroid to get this close was seen in 1975. The next one to come close is not expected until 2027.
Knowing what the space object is will tell us a lot about the asteroid. Solving this mystery is important to NASA’s Lance Benner, who heads up the asteroid radar research program at JPL in California. According to Bustle.com, He spoke with Space.com, explaing the asteroid’s unique orbit is what caused its status to be questioned. “Such a unique orbit, along with its high encounter velocity — about 35 kilometers or 22 miles per second — raises the question of whether it may be some type of comet. If so, then this would be the first time that the Goldstone radar has imaged a comet from such a close distance.”
Even though the asteroid is not a sign of the coming Apocalypse, it will give scientists a chance to further advance the study of asteroids and comet research. And who knows, there could be a potential horror film in the near future for Spooky.
