Meet Florence, the Giant Asteroid That Will Buzz by Earth This September

[jpak]

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/meet-florence-giant-asteroid-will-pass-earth-september-180964583/

Now that solar eclipse-mania has passed, it’s time to get excited for another astronomical event: an asteroid passing by. On September 1, a space rock dubbed Florence will become the largest asteroid to zoom past Earth since near-Earth asteroids were discovered a century ago, reports Eddie Irizarry at EarthSky.

Measurements made by the Spitzer Space Telescope and NEOWISE asteroid-hunting instrument suggest that Florence is around 2.7 miles across, according to NASA. The asteroid will pass 4.4 million miles from Earth, about 18 times the distance from the Earth to the moon. That is a long ways, but on the galactic scale, it’s a hair's breadth.

“While many known asteroids have passed by closer to Earth than Florence will on September 1, all of those were estimated to be smaller,” Paul Chodas, manager of NASA’s Center for Near-Earth Object Studies says in the press release. NASA has tracked these near-Earth objects since 1998, and Florence tops the charts.

The space rock, officially called Asteroid 1981 ET3, was first detected at Australia’s Siding Spring Observatory in 1981 and was named Florence 3122 in honor of Florence Nightingale, the mother of modern nursing, Irizarry reports.

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https://thumbs-prod.si-cdn.com/0CdpXOOFm_-Fb5iOv2_8-Uf_Ujk=/800x600/filters:no_upscale()/

[pat_k]

1. Ok, maybe I'm nuts, but...

..does anyone else see a face? It's the wrong shape, but eyes and mouth look like Mr. Bill's "Oh No!"



If I were buzzing earth at this juncture, I'd be saying "Oh No!" too!

[The Blue Flower]

2. I see a very symmetrical heart on the left side

A comet with heart! No wonder she's named after Florence Nightingale!

[hunter]

3. Better than Matilda...