Astraea is a very large asteroid circling the sun between Mars and Jupiter, inside the main asteroid belt. NASA JPL does not treat Astraea as potentially hazardous, because its orbit never carries it near Earth.
One lap around the sun takes Astraea 1,510 days (4.13 years). Over that circuit it swings between 2.09 AU and 3.06 AU from the sun, travelling at an average of 18.57 km/s. At 106.7 kilometers across, Astraea is bigger than 99% of known asteroids — roughly the size of the U.S. state of Delaware.
Astraea has been watched long enough to time its spin: one full turn on its axis takes 16.81 hours.
Astraea is classed as S on the Tholen scale, S on SMASSII.
At their nearest, the orbits of Astraea and Earth stay 1.11 AU apart. That is a comfortable margin, and it holds at every point in the orbit.
Orbital simulations run by NASA JPL's CNEOS turn up no close approaches to Earth.
The orbit of Astraea is pinned down by sightings going back to Dec. 15, 1845, the most recent officially logged on Feb. 2, 2023. The IAU Minor Planet Center holds 3,463 observations behind that solution.
A ◯ pink circle marks where Astraea sits. It may fall outside your current field of view — use the controls below to change the position, location and time.