asteroid flys by earth
© NASA
A strikingly spooky asteroid is expected to whizz curiously close to Earth on Halloween, NASA has announced.

Discovered within the last two weeks, the large asteroid, 2015 TB145, will pass Earth at 1.3 times the moon's distance (approximately 310,000 miles). 2015 TB145′s pass is the closest of any object its size since 2006; not until August 2027 will another large object pass so close to Earth.


Comment: How on God's green Earth could they possibly know that if they only spotted this massive one two weeks ago?? Who is to say another large one won't come out of left-field in a couple of months' time? Sott.net has published dozens of reports of 'newly-discovered close fly-bys of asteroids' in the last couple of years...


2015 TB145′s closest approach will occur at 11:14 a.m. EST on October 31, 2015. According to EarthSky.org, the asteroid will be best observed in the Western Hemisphere during the early morning hours of October 31. Skywatchers will need a telescope to see the asteroid.

"The flyby presents a truly outstanding scientific opportunity to study the physical properties of this object," astronomers write on NASA's website. They also note that the object has been observed to have an "extremely eccentric [...] high inclination orbit."

Despite its eerie timing, the asteroid poses no threat to Earth.