This Friday, a three-mile-wide asteroid is going to fly past
Earth – the biggest space rock to pass our planet this close in a century.
Asteroid 1981 ET3 – also known as 3122 Florence – will fly
past safely on September 1, 18 times further away than the moon.
‘While many known asteroids have passed by closer to Earth
than Florence will on September 1, all of those were estimated to be smaller,’
said Paul Chodas, manager of NASA’s Center for Near-Earth Object Studies
(CNEOS) at the agency’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
‘Florence is the largest asteroid to pass by our planet this
close since the NASA program to detect and track near-Earth asteroids began.’
The asteroid, named for Florence Nightingale, was first spotted
in 1981, and the flyby in September will be the closest it’s come to Earth
since 1890.
Asteroid Florence was discovered by Schelte “Bobby” Bus at
Siding Spring Observatory in Australia
in March 1981.
It is named in honor of Florence Nightingale (1820-1910),
the founder of modern nursing.
The 2017 encounter is the closest by this asteroid since
1890 and the closest it will ever be until after 2500.
This relatively close encounter provides an opportunity for
scientists to study this asteroid up close.
Florence is expected to be an excellent target for
ground-based radar observations – and will also be visible to amateur
astronomers via telescopes.
