Flora is a very large asteroid circling the sun between Mars and Jupiter, inside the main asteroid belt. NASA JPL does not treat Flora as potentially hazardous, because its orbit never carries it near Earth.
One lap around the sun takes Flora 1,190 days (3.26 years). Over that circuit it swings between 1.86 AU and 2.55 AU from the sun, travelling at an average of 20.12 km/s. At 147.5 kilometers across, Flora is bigger than 99% of known asteroids — roughly the size of the U.S. state of Connecticut.
Flora has been watched long enough to time its spin: one full turn on its axis takes 12.87 hours.
Flora is classed as S on the Tholen scale.
At their nearest, the orbits of Flora and Earth stay 0.87 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 Flora is pinned down by sightings going back to Oct. 27, 1847, the most recent officially logged on May 29, 2023. The IAU Minor Planet Center holds 3,074 observations behind that solution.
A ◯ pink circle marks where Flora sits. It may fall outside your current field of view — use the controls below to change the position, location and time.