A ‘death comet’ will be zipping passed earth just after Halloween this year.
The asteroid with a skull-like face will make its second trip near earth in three years after flying a worrisome 302,000 miles of our planet on October 31, 2015.
This year, the comet will be a much more comfortable 24million miles away on November 11, Mother Nature Network reported.
The comet, officially recognized as 2015 TB145, has a few nicknames including ‘Halloween asteroid’, ‘death comet’ and ‘The Great Pumpkin’ by NASA.
A ‘death comet’ with a skull face will pass earth November 11 about 24million miles away
A chart form 2015 shows the comets last visit on Halloween 2015 about 302,000 miles away from earth
The 2000-foot-wide rock gets the name ‘death comet’ not only because of its human skull face, but because it’s believed to have been long-dead.
Numerous passes around the sun likely stripped the comet of its volatiles, according to Mother Nature Network.
‘We found that the object reflects about 6 percent of the light it receives from the sun,’ said Vishnu Reddy, a research scientist at the Planetary Science Institute in Tucson, Arizona said in 2015.
‘That is similar to fresh asphalt, and while here on Earth we think that is pretty dark, it is brighter than a typical comet which reflects only 3 to 5 percent of the light. That suggests it could be cometary in origin — but as there is no coma evident, the conclusion is it is a dead comet,’ Reddy said.
The Green Bank Telescope in West Virginia captured the asteroid in the early morning hours of Halloween 2015 during a different period in its rotation.
The 2015 flyby was the closest the eerie comet has come to earth.
In this lifetime, the comet’s next closest visit will occur on November 1, 2088, at an even more comfortable distance of just over 5 million miles from earth.
The comet has a human skull face and has been dubbed the Halloween asteroid (illustration)