New Delhi: A large asteroid named ‘Florence’ safely passed by Earth on September 1.
The encounter that had kept the scientists drooling, occurred at around 5.35 pm (India time), when the asteroid came within a mere 4.4 million miles (7 million km) of Earth — just 18 times the distance from our planet to the moon.
This is the closest by this asteroid since 1890 and the closest it will ever be until after 2500.
As per NASA scientists, it will visible for several nights between late August and early September.
"While many known asteroids have passed by closer to Earth than Florence. They were estimated to be smaller," said Paul Chodas, Manager of NASA`s Centre for Near-Earth Object Studies (CNEOS) at the agency`s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.
"Florence is the largest asteroid to pass by our planet this close since the NASA programme to detect and track near-Earth asteroids began," Chodas said.
Florence will brighten to ninth magnitude in late August and early September, when it will be visible in small telescopes for several nights as it moves through the constellations Piscis Austrinus, Capricornus, Aquarius and Delphinus, NASA said.
This relatively close encounter provides an opportunity for scientists to study this asteroid up close.
Asteroid Florence was discovered by Schelte "Bobby" Bus at Siding Spring Observatory in Australia in March 1981.
Florence is expected to be an excellent target for ground-based radar observations.
(With IANS inputs)
