Nearer To Asteroid Eros
Explanation:
As the
robot spacecraft NEAR lowers itself toward
asteroid 433 Eros,
more surface details are becoming visible.
Last week's
maneuvers brought
NEAR
to within 204 kilometers of the floating mountain's
surface.
With increased resolution,
NEAR's camera then documented
Eros' unusual shape,
craters large and small,
boulders,
and mysterious grooves similar to
asteroid Gaspra and
Martian moon Phobos.
If you could stand on
Eros,
you would still be too small to be visible on
this recent image, which shows features as small
as 20 meters across.
However, you would feel
gravity only 1/1000 that on Earth, so that
you could easily jump over even this large 5 kilometer wide crater.
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.
