An asteroid will move past Earth on Halloween. The celestial body measures 1,300 feet and will actually travel very close to the planet.
On Oct. 31, 2015, the asteroid will pass Earth at around 1.3 times the distance between the planet and the moon, or about 300,000 miles away. It is most likely the closest encounter that the Earth will have with an asteroid until the year 2027, based on a report by Popular Science.
The Halloween asteroid, called 2015 TB145, was only discovered on October 10 by Pan-STARRS, a huge telescope in Hawaii that monitors the skies for asteroids, comets and other celestial entities. Richard Wainscoat, principal investigator of Pan-STARRS, said that it is uncommon to find a big asteroid moving so close to Earth. One of the reasons why the asteroid was detected close to its passing date was due to its location. It was situated in a region of sky where not many asteroids are present. The telescope normally does not check the area often. Although somewhat late, the discovery showed the competence and thoroughness of NASA surveys.
“If it were headed directly for Earth, that would have been too late to do anything about it. An asteroid of this size is really difficult to deflect with only 20 days warning.” said Paul Chodas, head of the NASA Near Earth Object program.
Chodas added that the last time that a close approach similar to the one by the Halloween asteroid was in 1975. He would not expect several asteroids to have the same orbit as 2015 TB145. Most of these are in orbits that are easier to detect.
The asteroid is set to be at its closest point to Earth at around 1:18 pm ET. It will be moving at around 78,300 miles per hour and will be bright enough to see with the aid of a star chart and a decent telescope. Scientists will know more about the asteroid when it draws closer. It is estimated to be around 1,050 to 2,100 feet in diameter. Techno Buffalo wrote that NASA plans to study the Halloween asteroid and hopefully learn more ways to detect these types of objects in outer space.
Universe Today stated that several optical observatories and radar capabilities of NASA’s Deep Space Network will be monitoring that asteroid. NASA experts aim to acquire radar images of the asteroid at around 2 meters per pixel. The close approach of the asteroid will be among the best asteroids for radar imaging that NASA scientists will get, said Lance Benner, head of the NASA asteroid radar research program.