Halloween is the official excuse for people to walk around scaring the crap out of other people - without harming them of course (boundaries). Well, it looks like humans are not the only ones who like to get their spook on, every once in a while. The universe has its own ways of being creepy and spot-on at the same time.?
On one of its Instagram accounts, NASA recently put out a picture of a dead comet that cruised past Earth five years ago, on Halloween, and it sort of looks like a skull.
Imagine a giant skull hurtling towards you on Halloween night. Yep, sweet dreams no more.?
According to NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, it was called asteroid 2015 TB145 and was observed through NASA's Infrared Telescope Facility (IRTF) on Mauna Kea, Hawaii.The first radar images of the dead comet were generated by the National Science Foundation's 305-meter (1,000-foot) Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico. They indicated that it was spherical in shape and approximately 2,000 feet (600 meters) in diameter, and completed a rotation about once every five hours.?
?The first time this appeared was on October 30, 2015, and then in November 2018. Radar images obtained at the Arecibo Observatory appeared to rotate clockwise, which is noticeable by the movement of bright features.?
¡°The bright and dark features are indication of surface irregularities. For example, the central dark feature may be a large circular depression, possibly an impact crater,¡± commented Dr James Richardson, USRA Scientist in the Planetary Radar Group.?
Well, keep an eye on the skies. You never know, a giant pumpkin-shaped something might be hurtling past this year.
With inputs from:?https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/