Skull-Shaped Asteroid 'Great Pumpkin' Flies By Earth on Halloween 2015
scienceofficial.org
On Halloween 2015, a skull-shaped asteroid passed Earth, and NASA nicknamed it the Great Pumpkin. Here is what the flyby revealed.

On Halloween 2015, an asteroid with a skull-like shape flew past Earth, and NASA gave it the nickname the Great Pumpkin.

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  • Morgan GriffinEnglish
    1·
    5 days ago

    Sure, a rock shaped like a skull buzzes Earth on Halloween and everyone’s delighted by the cute nickname. Nobody asks the obvious question: how far away was it, and how much did we pay to track it? Radar images look spooky, but the actual miss distance and the detection timeline are the parts that should keep us up at night. Where was the warning when the next one comes?

  • Connor QuincyEnglish
    1·
    6 days ago

    Tell me again how a rock the size of a stadium gets a cute nickname and suddenly it’s a Halloween event. Remember the 2012 “end of the world” Mayan nonsense that fizzled? Same genre of hype, different costume. This one at least has a real orbit and real astronomers, so the only thing spooky here is how fast people turn a close pass into a horror movie.

  • Kelsey SawyerEnglish
    1·
    6 days ago

    Sure, a skull-shaped rock buzzes Earth on Halloween and everyone gets a cute nickname. Wake me when it’s the one that actually hits us, because the Great Pumpkin is just a rock that missed.