With an estimated diameter around 550 m (1,800 ft), it was discovered by the Lincoln Near-Earth Asteroid Research at Socorro, New Mexico on 23 March 2001.

During the day before closest approach, 2001 FO32 reached a peak apparent magnitude of 11.7 and was visible to ground-based observers with telescope apertures of at least 20 cm (8 in).

Shortly after discovery, follow-up observations were carried out by four other observatories until the asteroid's subsequent confirmation by the Minor Planet Center on 24 March 2003.

[2] 2001 FO32 is a member of the dynamical Apollo group of Earth-crossing near-Earth asteroids with orbital semi-major axes greater than 1 astronomical unit (AU).

[3] Although it is classified as a potentially hazardous asteroid due to its large size combined with its small minimum orbit intersection distance (MOID) of 0.00375 AU (1.46 lunar distances) from Earth's orbital path, the asteroid will not make any close approaches within 0.01 AU (3.9 LD) over the next 200 years.

[3][10] Preliminary observations by NEOWISE show that 2001 FO32 appears to be faint in infrared wavelengths of light, indicating that the asteroid is likely less than 1 kilometer in diameter.

One day after its closest approach, bistatic radar observations were carried out by NASA's Goldstone Deep Space Communications Complex in California and Green Bank Telescope in West Virginia.