--Previous Message--
: October 21, 2015; 4:22 PM ET
:
: A newly discovered asteroid larger than a
: skyscraper will whiz past the Earth on
: Halloween, making a dangerously close
: approach to the planet.
:
: The asteroid, officially named 2015 TB145,
: was just discovered on Oct. 10, 2015, and is
: expected to make its closest approach to the
: Earth at the end of the month.
:
: Some have already given the asteroid the
: nickname of "Spooky" due to the
: fact that its closest approach to Earth is
: going to occur on Halloween.
:
: Fortunately, the asteroid will miss the
: Earth, but it will still make an
: uncomfortably close approach of 302,885
: miles. To put this in perspective, the
: average distance from the Earth to the moon
: is 238,900 miles.
:
: The exact size of "Spooky" is
: still unknown, but NASA has estimated the
: diameter of the asteroid to be between 900
: feet and 2,000 feet.
:
: This is much smaller than the asteroid that
: caused the dinosaurs to go extinct, but if
: it collided with the Earth, it would still
: produce a significant amount of destruction
: around the area where it made impact.
:
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