2340 Hathor is an asteroid

Asteroid

Asteroids are a class of small Solar System bodies in orbit around the Sun. They have also been called planetoids, especially the larger ones...

 that was discovered on October 22, 1976 by C.T. Kowal

Charles T. Kowal

Charles Thomas Kowal was an American astronomer.He discovered two moons of Jupiter: Leda in 1974 and Themisto in 1975, although the latter was lost and not rediscovered until 2000....

 at Palomar. Like the other objects of Aten type

Aten asteroid

The Aten asteroids are a group of near-Earth asteroids, named after the first of the group to be discovered . They are defined by having semi-major axes of less than one astronomical unit...

, Hathor is named for an Egyptian deity. Known as a sky-goddess and the daughter of Ra

Ra

Ra is the ancient Egyptian sun god. By the Fifth Dynasty he had become a major deity in ancient Egyptian religion, identified primarily with the mid-day sun...

, Hathor

Hathor

Hathor , is an Ancient Egyptian goddess who personified the principles of love, beauty, music, motherhood and joy. She was one of the most important and popular deities throughout the history of Ancient Egypt...

 was also identified with Aphrodite

Aphrodite

Aphrodite is the Greek goddess of love, beauty, pleasure, and procreation.Her Roman equivalent is the goddess .Historically, her cult in Greece was imported from, or influenced by, the cult of Astarte in Phoenicia....

. The name was proposed by E. Helin, who made an independent discovery of the object, and also made crucial recovery observations in 1981.

It approaches to within 30 Gm, or about 80 lunar distances

Lunar distance (astronomy)

In astronomy, a lunar distance is a measurement of the distance from the Earth to the Moon. The average distance from Earth to the Moon is 384,400 kilometers...

, of Earth 17 times in the 21st century.