8 Flora

Also known as (8) Flora, Flora

main-belt asteroid

AI overview

8 Flora is a large asteroid located in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. It is scientifically important because it is the parent body of a notable family of smaller asteroids created by ancient collisions, and studying it helps astronomers understand the history and composition of the early solar system.

AI-generated from the Wikipedia summary — may contain errors.

Picture of the Day · NASA

Jupiter and Venus from Earth

2026-06-07

It was visible around the world. The sunset conjunction of Jupiter (left) and Venus (right) in 2012 was visible almost no matter where you lived on Earth. Anyone on our planet with a clear western horizon at sunset could see them. That year, a creative photographer traveled away from the town lights of Szubin, Poland to photograph a near closest approach of the two planets. The bright planets were then separated by only three degrees and his daughter struck a humorous pose. A faint red sunset still glowed in the background. Jupiter and Venus are together again this week after sunset, passing within a degree of each other about two days from today.

Wikidata facts

Image: 8 Flora VLT (2021), deconvolved.pdf

Sources (3)

via Wikidata · CC0

Article

8 Flora is a large, bright main-belt asteroid. It is the innermost large asteroid: no asteroid closer to the Sun has a diameter above 25 kilometers (20% that of Flora), and not until 20-km 149 Medusa was discovered was an asteroid known to orbit at a closer mean distance. It is the seventh-brightest asteroid with a mean opposition magnitude of +8.7. Flora can reach a magnitude of +8.1 at a favorable opposition near perihelion, such as occurred in November 2020 when it was 0.88 AU (132 million km; 340 LD) from Earth.

Discovery and naming