"Spooky" 2015TB145 ... Are You Afraid, Yet?

NASA wants you to be assured that there is no reason for alarm about the prospects of a recently discovered asteroid whose orbit will closely (very close as far as things in space are concerned) fly by Earth and miss impacting our planet.

The near encounter will take place early on this Halloween, October 31st and hence the NEO (near earth orbit object)  has been dubbed "Spooky".

There ARE however some other "spooky" aspects to this rock.

As yet no one can say with certainty what its size is - here's a comparison illustration showing it to be either 951 feet or 2132 feet in diameter with the Trump Tower in between. Take your pick. (The meteorite that exploded over Chelyabinsk, Russia in 2013 by comparison was only 66 feet in diameter.)

As asteroids go this one is additionally interesting in that its speed is significantly faster than most others - "spooky" is traveling at 78,000 miles per hour. Rifle bullets at 3000 feet per second (fast for a rifle bullet) "slow poke" around in comparison at about 2045 miles per hour.

"Spooky" is to miss us by 300,000 miles give or take or about 1.3 times the distance between the earth and moon. A distance that "spooky" by the way can cover in less than 3 days time. Perhaps up until "spooky" the closest near miss from an asteroid this size came in December 1914 , (152680) 1998 KJ9 skirted by the earth at a distance of 234,000 miles. Presumably there is no danger of "spooky" impacting with the moon, either on its fly by.

Lastly, "spooky" was only discovered eleven days ago on October 10th by satellite. NASA has been preoccupied with another NEO instead that is expected to miss us by over 4 million miles. In fact NASA has said it has only identified less than 1 percent of the estimated million NEOs at least 100 feet in diameter.

And that's downright CREEPY !