BEIJING, Dec. 24 (Xinhua) -- The "Halloween Asteroid" will be back next year. The giant space rock, which flew past Earth during Halloween 2015, gained public attention because it bears an incredible resemblance to a human skull.
The asteroid, termed as 2015 TB145, is determined by scientists as likely a dead comet, with a diameter of about 600 meters, according to U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).
The asteroid will fly by Earth in November 2018 at just under 1.3 lunar distances, which is about 486,000 km, and will not pose any threat to our planet.
After that, it will not come as close to Earth as before for many years to come, India Today reported, noting that the object will approach Earth at about 20 lunar distances in 2088.
The first radar images of the asteroid were generated by the U.S. National Science Foundation's 305-meter Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico. It's found to have a rotation of approximately 5 hours and velocity of 35 km per second.
