Iris is a very large asteroid circling the sun between Mars and Jupiter, inside the main asteroid belt. NASA JPL does not treat Iris as potentially hazardous, because its orbit never carries it near Earth.
One lap around the sun takes Iris 1,350 days (3.7 years). Over that circuit it swings between 1.84 AU and 2.94 AU from the sun, travelling at an average of 19.24 km/s. At 199.8 kilometers across, Iris is bigger than 99% of known asteroids — roughly the size of the U.S. state of Maryland.
Iris has been watched long enough to time its spin: one full turn on its axis takes 7.14 hours.
Iris is classed as S on the Tholen scale, S on SMASSII.
At their nearest, the orbits of Iris and Earth stay 0.85 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 Iris is pinned down by sightings going back to Aug. 23, 1848, the most recent officially logged on June 15, 2023. The IAU Minor Planet Center holds 5,387 observations behind that solution.
A ◯ pink circle marks where Iris sits. It may fall outside your current field of view — use the controls below to change the position, location and time.