Trick or Slooh

Slooh.

     That's the name of the community which nicknamed the Halloween asteroid "Spooky". 

     Spooky, estimated to be between 1,000 and 2,000 feet wide, is hurtling toward Earth at more than 78,000 mph.

     Spooky's official designation is 2015 TB145. I like Spooky better. Simple things for simple minds. He/she/it will come within 310,000 miles of Earth on Oct. 31.

     NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory's Near Earth Object Program keeps track of these sort of things, and if you have Java enabled on your computer, you can have some fun on their website. Spooky, the dot, will be seen passing the third planet from the sun.

     According to NASA, Spooky was discovered only recently by the Pan-STARRS telescope in Hawaii on Oct. 10.

     Said Paul Cox of the community telescope service called Slooh, "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. If that doesn’t give you the chills, nothing will."

     The closest approach of Spooky or TB145 will happen at 1:12 p.m. EST on Saturday, Halloween day.

     For those of you wishing to track the Halloween asteroid on Allhallows Eve, you can check in with the Slooh community. Or you can go out and Trick or Treat.

     Slooh community:  http://goo.gl/WZguvn

Spookily yours,

Gerrie Ferris Finger

ECLIPSE - THE SKY GODS' CHRISTMAS GIFT

Wake up, sleepyhead and see the sky. On December 21 a lunar eclipse will last for three-and-a-half hours from its start as a partial eclipse at 1:33 a.m. ET to its finish at 5:01 a.m. ET, according to NASA. The previous lunar eclipse occurred June 26.

During a lunar eclipse you'll see an array of color changes as the moon, the Earth, and the sun align so that the sun's rays are shielded from the moon. An eclipse of the moon can only take place if the moon is full,.

The moon will pass through the Earth's umbra - shadow - which blocks sunlight from reaching the moon. The moon will take on a dramatic red color, so says NASA.

Before and after the total eclipse, the moon will pass through the penumbra, or outer region of the Earth's shadow, where Earth blocks some of the sun's rays, but not all.

If you live in North America, Greenland and Iceland and Western Europe you'll see the beginning stages of the eclipse. Western Asia sees the later stages after moonrise.

Compiled from News Sources and NASA

Gerrie Ferris Finger