3255 Tholen, provisional designation 1980 RA, is a stony asteroid, Mars-crosser and relatively fast rotator, that measures approximately 5.1 kilometers (3.2 miles) in diameter.
It was discovered on 2 September 1980, by American astronomer Edward Bowell at Lowell's Anderson Mesa Station in Flagstaff, Arizona.
Members of this dynamically unstable group are located between the main belt and near-Earth populations.
[2] The official naming citation was published by the Minor Planet Center on 14 April 1987 (M.P.C.
In September 2013, Italian astronomer Andrea Ferrero at the Bigmuskie Observatory (B88) in Mombercelli, Italy, derived a rotation period of 2.947±0.001 hours with a brightness variation of 0.11 in magnitude (U=2),[11] while two month later, in November 2013, astronomer Brian A. Skiff obtained two lightcurves that both gave a period of 2.95 and an amplitude of 0.24 and 0.28 in magnitude, respectively (U=3-/3-).