Flying Over Asteroid Eros West End
Explanation:
The robot spacecraft NEAR Shoemaker continues
to orbit asteroid Eros.
This condensed 40-minute long time-lapse sequence
taken last month shows what it looks like to pass
within 200 kilometers of
Eros' west end.
The north pole of the
rotating mountain is toward
the bottom of the picture.
This month NEAR-Shoemaker
closes to within 100 kilometers,
and by the end of this month will orbit only
50 kilometers from the center of this 33-kilometer long
asteroid.
One reason for moving in so close is to determine
if 433 Eros has a magnetic field.
NEAR Shoemaker, launched in 1996, is
run by a computer similar to a PC released
15 years ago (12 MHz, 256K).
Authors & editors:
Robert Nemiroff
(MTU) &
Jerry Bonnell
(USRA)
NASA Web Site Statements, Warnings,
and Disclaimers
NASA Official: Jay Norris.
Specific
rights apply.
A service of:
LHEA at
NASA /
GSFC
& Michigan Tech. U.
