A substantial asteroid will pass within a few hundred thousand miles of Earth on Halloween, though astronomers believe it represents no threat.
According to Space.com, the asteroid is "the size of a football stadium" and will come about as close to Earth as the moon. NASA astronomers named the asteroid 2015 TB145, but refer to it as "Spooky" given the timing of its flyby.
Per EarthSky.org: "The space rock's brightness will be at an approximate magnitude of 10, which is fainter than the eye alone can see. But the asteroid should be easy to spot "slowly" moving across the field of stars if you know when and where to look. And, by the way, although the asteroid's distance will make this moving object appear to move slowly, this speeding space rock is traveling at 78,000 miles (126,000 km) per hour!
"On the night of October 30-31, the asteroid will be traveling across the well-known constellation of Orion."
The Slooh Community Observatory will air a live broadcast of the asteroid's flyby online.
"It's frightening to think an asteroid this size, approaching so close to Earth, was discovered only 21 days before its closest approach, which just happens to be on Halloween," Slooh host Paul Cox said in a statement. "If that doesn't give you the chills, nothing will.
"Slooh members are tracking the asteroid every night in order to reduce the great uncertainty of its position, size and highly unusual orbit," he said. "We can't afford to lose sight of an object this big, which has happened repeatedly in the past."
