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This radar view of the Halloween asteroid 2015 TB145 looks hauntingly like a skull ahead of an Oct. 31, 2015 flyby. The asteroid pass safely by Earth at a range of 300,000 miles. The Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico captured this view. Credit: National Astronomy and Ionosphere Center (Arecibo Observatory) NASA has called it a "Great Pumpkin." Others have called it "spooky." But this image of a huge asteroid making a Halloween flyby of Earth today looks so much like a skull, it's scary. The radar image of the stadium-sized asteroid 2015 TB145 was captured on Friday, Halloween eve (Oct. 30), by scientists using the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico. It shows a haunting view of an asteroid with an uneven surface, with depressions in regions that give it the appearance of a human skull staring out from the void. The image is an optical illusion, of course, created by pareidolia, in which the human brain perceives shapes and patterns that aren't really there. This radar view - while fitting for today's Halloween asteroid flyby - is actually just one of several images of 2015 TB145 that show it rotating in space, with pitted surface scarred by time. The National Astronomy and Ionosphere Center overseeing Arecibo released the skull-shaped view, as well as another image showing a series of views of the asteroid over time. [Halloween Asteroid Flyby: A Guide for Observers] "The bright and dark features are indication of surface irregularities," James Richardson, a scientist with the Planetary Radar Group of Universities Space Research Association using the Arecibo Observatory, said in a statement. "For example, the central dark feature may be a large circular depression, possibly an impact crater." This series of radar images of the asteroid 2015 TB145 were captured by the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico. They show views of the so-called Halloween asteroid as it rotated during a 40-minute observation ahead of its Oct. 31, 2015 flyby of Earth. Credit: National Astronomy and Ionosphere Center (Arecibo Observatory) Asteroid 2015 TB145 will pass safely by Earth at a range of about 300,000 miles (480,000 kilometers), about 1.3 times the distance between the Earth and the moon. Radar observations of the asteroid have shown it to be larger than expected - it's 1,968.5 feet (600 meters) wide - and rotating once every five hours. The asteroid is speeding through space at 78,293 mph (126,000 km/h) and has shown some signs suggesting it may be a comet. 2015 TB145 was discovered on Oct. 10 by scientists using the University of Hawaii's Pan-STARRS 1 observatory. The flyby is the closest of its kind for such a large asteroid until August 2027, so NASA scientists have been tracking it with radar and optical telescopes to take advantage of such a fortuitous chance to see an asteroid up close. The best images, they say, will come Saturday, once the asteroid makes its closest approach to Earth. Source http://www.space.com/30983-halloween-asteroid-creepy-skull-image.html
