LYCOS RETRIEVER 
433 Eros: Asteroid
built 122 days ago
NASA's NEAR-Shoemaker spacecraft landed on the asteroid 433 Eros, 145 million miles from Earth, on 12 February this year. During the final descent 70 high-resolution images of the asteroid's surface were obtained (see movie on http://near.jhuapl.edu/NEAR), revealing the surface in remarkable detail. These images have now been analysed and three papers in this issue report the results. Parts of the asteroid's surface are covered with loose debris, possibly originating from a relatively young 7.6-km-diameter impact crater, and other areas are covered with distinctive smooth dusty surfaces.
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G. Witt discovered 433 Eros, the first asteroid found to cross Mars' orbit and to approach Earth's, in 1898. With diameters of approximately 40 x 14 x 14 kilometers, Eros is the second largest planet-crosser and larger than the Martian moons Phobos and Deimos. The asteroid was named for the son of Aphrodite, Eros, the god of love. The mortal beauty Psyche, Eros' wife, was forbidden to gaze upon him by the light of day. Psyche's curiosity eventually got the best of her, and she defied the order. Like Psyche, scientists, driven by curiosity and daring to break barriers, in this case technological, have sent a spacecraft to Eros.
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Explanation: On December 23, the NEAR spacecraft flew by asteroid 433 Eros. NEAR was originally scheduled to brake and orbit Eros, but an unexpected shutdown of its main engine caused this plan to be aborted. NEAR will now be reset and attempt to return to orbit Eros in early 2000. The above image sequence was taken as NEAR approached Eros. The rotation of the asteroid is visible in the successive frames. When NEAR is fully operational, it will likely provoke the world's largest telescopes to point not toward asteroid Eros but to positions indicated by another of NEAR's instruments: its gamma-ray burst (GRB) detector.
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For a year the little space ship, NEAR Shoemaker circled the asteroid 433 Eros. It mapped the surface with lasers and analyzed the spectra with reflected cosmic rays. It took 160,000 pictures from all angles and even swooped down close to the ends for high resolution photos. The little bird settled flawlessly onto the surface in the vicinity of the Himeros saddle on February 12, 2001. As it descended it took some remarkable high-resolution photos.
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Scientists are releasing highly detailed 3-D views of the near-Earth asteroid 433 Eros. The images were not captured by a camera, but are the product of over 8 million observations from the NEAR Laser Rangefinder (NLR). The NLR measures heights on Eros' surface by determining the time short pulses of laser light take to travel from the spacecraft to the asteroid and back. NEAR team members use this information to build detailed models of Eros' shape, which in turn help them understand the asteroid's collisional evolution and internal structure. The shape of Eros ... provides a context for interpreting images and compositional information. To view the thumbnail images of the true color Eros asteroid, click here.
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On February 14, 2000, at 11:00 a.m. Eastern time, the spacecraft NEAR (Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous) achieved a notable 'first' when it entered orbit around asteroid 433 Eros. The date marks the beginning of a year-long study of the potato-shaped asteroid, during which time the spacecraft will inch closer and closer to the asteroid—maybe close enough to scratch the surface. The spacecraft has already sent a number of dramatic images of Eros.
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