Grinning 'skull' asteroid returns for Halloween flyby

Photo: Screen Shot Of Artist's Rendition

An artist's rendition of Asteroid 2015 TB145, the so-called "Halloween Asteroid" enhances the rock's skull-like shape. The asteroid was discovered shortly before it arrived on Halloween Day 2015.

The "Halloween Asteroid" — a space rock resembling a grinning human skull — is back for another flyby of Earth, but it's not scaring anyone this time.

Unlike 2015, when it arrived on Halloween, Asteroid 2015 TB145 will be tardy this year — it won't cruise by until Nov. 11, according to NASA. And it won't be nearly as close.

Three years ago, the eerie asteroid came within 301,986 miles of colliding with Earth. This year, it's giving the planet plenty of clearance.

TB145 will miss the planet by 24 million miles, or about a quarter of the distance from Earth to the sun, according to NASA's Jet Propulsion small-body object database.

Still, that's as close as it will get for most people alive today. The next time it haunts the neighborhood will be 2082, when it will come within 33 million miles of the planet.

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Fuzzy images of the small (about 2,047 feet — 625 meters wide) asteroid generated from radar data picked up by the National Science Foundation's Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico in 2015 revealed a roughly spherical rock showing indentations vaguely resembling hollow eye sockets, a nose hole and a dark area that could be a mouth.

But higher-resolution images taken later in 2015 did not show the same macabre features.

Photo: NAIC-Arecibo/NSF

The Halloween Asteroid was discovered Oct. 10, 2015, by the University of Hawaii's Pan-STARRS-1 (Panoramic Survey Telescope and Rapid Response System) telescope in Haleakala, on the island of Maui. This image appeared to reveal indentations giving the asteroid skull-like features.

Because of its greater distance from the Earth this time, it's impossible to tell what the rock currently looks like.

NASA scientists suspect the asteroid is a dead comet, one that has shed its icy-debris tail after too many trips around the sun.

One thing they know for sure is that it poses no danger to Earthlings.

But if you really want to worry about close encounters of the asteroid kind, there's always 99942 Apophis.

On April 13, 2029, the asteroid — named after the Egyptian god of evil — will buzz Earth, missing by a mere 23,239 miles, according to the Max-Planck-Institut für extraterrestrische.

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