Asteroid 3122 Florence, one of the largest near-Earth objects ever tracked by NASA and about 4.4 kilometers across, passed within 4.4 million miles of Earth — its closest approach since the asteroid's 1981 discovery. Radar imaging revealed two small moons orbiting it, and the flyby offered astronomers a rare close-range study of a potentially hazardous asteroid.
Asteroid 3122 Florence, one of the largest near-Earth objects ever tracked by NASA and about 4.4 kilometers across, passed within 4.4 million miles of Earth — its closest approach since the asteroid's 1981 discovery. Radar imaging revealed two small moons orbiting it, and the flyby offered astronomers a rare close-range study of a potentially hazardous asteroid.