This fall, even space is getting into the spirit of the season: According to Space.com, an
asteroid that looks like a skull nicknamed
the Halloween Asteroid is set to fly by Earth not too long after the
spookiest holiday of the year. And when I say it looks like a skull, I really do mean that; images captured of the asteroid during its last flyby three years ago show a space rock whose shadows lend a distinctly skeleton-like cast to its own surface. The fact that it tends to drift by our planet during an extremely specific time of year just adds to the asteroid’s mystique; I mean, what are the odds that it would both look like a skull
and make its flybys around Halloween? It’s just too good a coincidence to pass up — and I am absolutely Here For It.
Officially called
Asteroid 2015 TB145, the Halloween Asteroid — which has also been referred to as
the Spooky Asteroid,
the Skull Asteroid, and, in a reference to one of the most memorable Peanuts cartoons of all time,
the Great Pumpkin — was
spotted for the first time on Oct. 10, 2015 by the Panoramic Survey Telescope and Rapid Response System (Pan-STARRS) at Hawaii’s Haleakala Observatory, according to Sky and Telescope. Its physical appearance immediately captured the imaginations of the world — and, really, how could it not? I mean, just
look at it:
