Media Information

 
 
 
Collection:
NASA Planetary Photo Journal Collection
Title:
NEAR Road to Eros
Original Caption Released with Image:
This montage shows a selection of images of the asteroid 433 Eros that were acquired from the NEAR spacecraft over three weeks from January 22 through February 12, 2000, as the spacecraft's distance from its target shrank from 18,000 to 1260 miles (29,000 to 2025 km). As the spacecraft closed in on its target, the resolution of the images increased from 1.7 to 0.12 miles (2.8 to 0.19 km) per pixel. At 20x8x8 miles in size (33x13x13 kilometers), Eros is the second largest near-Earth asteroid and spins on its axis once every 5 hours, 16 minutes.

During the early stages of NEAR's approach, Eros appeared as a small blob only a few pixels across. The apparent size of Eros and the resolution of the pictures increased continuously, at first only slowly and later dramatically day by day until, on February 9, the level of detail visible exceeded that during NEAR's first flyby of Eros on December 23, 1998. In the last images shown here, details of Eros's surface have become visible. Heavy cratering has pockmarked the irregular asteroid's surface. One side is dominated by a scallop-rimmed gouge, and the opposite side by a conspicuous, raised-rimmed crater.

Built and managed by The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, Laurel, Maryland, NEAR was the first spacecraft launched in NASA's Discovery Program of low-cost, small-scale planetary missions. See the NEAR web page at http://near.jhuapl.…for more details.
Addition Date:
2000-05-07
Produced By:
Johns Hopkins University/APL
Mission:
NEAR
Spacecraft:
NEAR Shoemaker
Target Name:
Eros
Is a satellite of:
Sol (our sun)
Instrument:
Multi-Spectral Imager
Product Size:
1024 samples x 691 lines
Primary Data Set:
NEAR Home Page
facet_what:
Sun
facet_what:
Crater
facet_what:
Earth
facet_what:
Imager
facet_what:
NEAR Shoemaker
facet_what:
Multi-Spectral Imager
facet_what:
Eros (asteroid)
facet_where:
Maryland
facet_where:
Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL)
facet_when:
February 12, 2000
facet_when:
December 23, 1998
facet_when_year:
2000
facet_when_year:
1998
Image #:
PIA02462
UID:
SPD-PHOTJ-PIA02462
orignial url:

NEAR Road to Eros