While everyone else is busy trick-or-treating this Halloween, a comet, most likely a dead one, slipped past Earth with images morphing a human skull.
The comet 2015 TB145 made a near flyby just over 300,000 miles (480,000 kilometres) at 125,000 km/h last Oct. 31. The asteroid was dubbed as "Spooky" and "Great Pumpkin" because of its holiday timing. The space rock, however, cannot be viewed from the ground. But a webcast featuring the comet's updates was done in the online Slooh Community Observatory.
Scientists observed the asteroid in Mauna Kea, Hawaii using NASA's Infrared Telescope Facility. "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," IRTF program scientist Kelly Fast said in a statement on Oct. 30.
To record the dead comet's animations, Slooh used a remote-operated observatory. The asteroid 2015 TB145 appeared to be a bright object gearing up the starry space. "We all saw those dramatic images of the skull-like object whirling through space captured by NASA's Arecibo Observatory," Tricia Ennis wrote from Slooh in an email.
"This is beautiful. It's such a high-resolution, nice image. You can see it rotating you can see features on the surface," Mark Boslough, a physicist at Sandia National Laboratories, said. "This is great science."
According to NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the flyby was considered high for an asteroid thereby 2015 TBA 145 might actually be a comet; however, it is a dead one as it no longer contains volatile elements, which are vital components for them to sublimate and give their bright tails. NASA's asteroid radar research program leader Lance Benner said that 2015 TB145 is "one of the best asteroids for radar imaging we'll see for several years."
The asteroid was discovered just this month, Oct. 10. A similar close approach was made to Earth in 1975 basing its trajectory. The next close flyby of a huge asteroid as per scientists will still be in the next 12 years.
