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A THREE MILE wide asteroid is set to graze past Earth on Sept. 1 - and NASA says it's the largest to come this close since they began keeping track ... [ full ] This is the closest an object this large has come ... since 1890. A massive asteroid estimated to be 2.7 miles wide is set to make a ‘relatively close encounter’ with Earth on September 1. ... 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. ... According to NASA,...

Asteroid Florence will pass by Earth on Sept. 1, 2017, at a distance of 4.4 million miles (7 million kilometers). Image Credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech A large rock will fly past Earth on Sept. 1, 2017, at a distance of 4.4 million miles (7 million kilometers). Asteroid 3122 Florence, named after modern nursing founder Florence Nightingale, is the largest object to make a close-encounter since NASA began tracking near-Earth objects (NEO) in the 1990s. “While many known asteroids have passed by closer to Earth than Florence will on Sept. 1, all of those were estimated to be smaller,” said Paul...

Radar images obtained between August 29 and September 1, when Florence came closest to Earth, reveal that the asteroid is about 2.8 miles (4.5 kilometers) in size, the US space agency said. It said the two moons were probably between 300-1,000 feet (100-300 meters) across. The inner moon takes approximately eight hours to revolve around Florence while the outer moon takes between 22 and 27 hours, NASA said. NASA said the radar images of Florence, which was discovered in 1981, were obtained by the Goldstone Deep Space Communications Complex in California.

WeÂ’ve got an interesting pass of a Near Earth Asteroid (NEA) this upcoming U.S. Labor Day weekend, one that just slides over the +10th magnitude line into binocular range. 3122 Florence, which passes 4.4 million miles from our fair planet (thatÂ’s 7 million kilometers, about 18 times the distance from Earth to the Moon) this Friday on September 1st at 12:06 Universal Time (UT)/ 8:06 AM Eastern Daylight Saving Time (EDT). ... Ordinarily, a four million mile pass (...just under the criterion to make 3122 Florence a Near Earth Object) isnÂ’t enough to grab our attention. Lots of asteroids pass...