Amateur astronomers were sent into a frenzy when the biggest Near-Earth Object (NEO) made its close encounter to Earth late August 31 and early September 1.
Much had been made of the asteroid’s passage through the stars, and excited viewers were not disappointed.
The three-mile wide meteor – big enough to wipe out all life on earth FIVE times over – passed by at a distance of just four million miles, a hair’s breadth in astronomical terms.
That is about 18 times the distance between the Earth and the moon and the closest this asteroid has been since 1890.
With a pair of binoculars, anyone was able to see Asteroid Florence racing across the night, and some have caught it on video.
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A video uploaded to YouTube by the channel Pibyte shows the asteroid shooting from left to right in footage, in what looks like a shooting star.
Asteroid Florence was the largest NEO to come this close to Earth, according to Nasa.
He said: “Florence is the largest asteroid to pass by our planet this close since the NASA program to detect and track near-Earth asteroids began.”
Due to its massive size, boffins at the space agency believe that it is an ideal candidate to test out new asteroid observation technologies.
Using new Earth-based radars, Nasa says that it can capture surface details on the giant asteroid that would be as small as 10 metres.
Nasa said in a statement: “When these small, natural remnants of the formation of the solar system pass relatively close to Earth, deep space radar is a powerful technique for studying their sizes, shapes, rotation, surface features and roughness, and for more precise determination of their orbital path.”