When you\u2019re out Trick or Treating and scaring little kids to tears next weekend, a 1,300-foot asteroid will be zooming past Earth. And it\u2019ll be relatively close, too. According to NASA scientists, it\u2019ll hurtle past just 1.3 times the average distance between Earth and the Moon, which is only about 300,000 miles away. This is expected to be the closest encounter with such a large object\u00a0for at least the next decade<\/p>\n
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The scary thing is we\u2019re just now hearing about 2015 TB145 (aka Halloween Asteroid), which scientists say snuck up on us\u2014our first glimpse of the asteroid didn\u2019t happen until Oct. 10. But luckily this isn\u2019t the apocalypse. Scientists say it\u2019ll safely pass us by, and those eating candy in their homes next Saturday will be none the wiser.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf it were headed directly for Earth, that would have been too late to do anything about it,\u201d said NASA\u2019s Paul Chodas, who heads the agency\u2019s Near Earth Object program. \u201cAn asteroid of this size is really difficult to deflect with only 20 days of warning.\u201d<\/p>\n
That\u2019s not exactly comforting, especially coming from the man who is in charge of detecting these things.<\/p>\n
The next big space rock to whiz past Earth won\u2019t happen until 2027, when a 2,600-foot rock will come within 1 Earth-moon distance, or about 238,000 miles. In the context of space, that\u2019s a pretty close shave, but at least we have a heads up.<\/p>\n
NASA plans on studying the Halloween Asteroid, which is hurtling through space at about 22 miles per second, when it flies by next weekend in an effort to learn more about the rock\u2019s size, shape, and other features.<\/p>\n
Who is going to be the first one to dress up as Halloween Asteroid?<\/p>\n