The skull-shaped asteroid 2015 TB145 will make its return in November 2018, according to a release from the Institute of Astrophysics of Andalusia in Spain.
Two years ago, astronomers in Hawaii first caught the asteroid in the shape of a human skull, passed Earth on the Halloween day of 2015. According to a new study, the asteroid 2015 TB145 will have another visit in November of next year few days after Halloween.
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Astronomers around the world, including NASA scientists, have studied the asteroid in its previous flight. Researchers say that on mission, the asteroid reached 486,000 kilometers from us – about 1.3 times the average distance to the Moon. When it comes to visit us again it will fly 105 times the average distance to the moon – a much larger distance than the previous time. The length of the asteroid ranges from 625 meters to 700 meters.
According to experts, the skull-shaped asteroid is a dead comet that no longer has volatile compounds because it circled the sun too many times. The findings of the new study on the asteroid will be published this February in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics.
However, astrophysicist Pablo Santos-Sans of the Institute of Astrophysics in Andalusia, Spain, believes that researchers will be able to draw a lot of information from the “skull” when he comes this time. “Even if the next surge is not very close, we will be able to obtain new information that can improve the information we have about this object and other similar objects approaching Earth,” he told Phys.org.
The asteroid’s brief visit to our neighborhood next year will not be the last. According to forecasts, even around the Halloween of 2088 we will merit peace from the asteroid skull, so it will reach 20 times the distance from the average to the moon.
It’s expected to return on Halloween proper in 2088, when it will be about 20 lunar distances away, the Institute of Astrophysics of Andalusia said.
