It was discovered on 4 December 1997, by the Lincoln Near-Earth Asteroid Research (LINEAR) program at Lincoln Laboratory's Experimental Test Site near Socorro, New Mexico, in the United States.
[2] The asteroid orbits the Sun at a distance of 0.9–1.3 AU once every 13 months (408 days).
[2] Between 2002 and 2006, 1997 XR2 was considered to have about a 1 in 10,000 chance of colliding with Earth on 1 June 2101, based on a 27-day observation arc following its discovery.
On 24 February 2006, 1997 XR2 was observed by the Mount Lemmon Survey after being lost for more than 8 years.
[5] According to a generic conversion of absolute magnitude to diameter, 1997 XR2 measures 200 to 230 meters.