Flying Over Asteroid Eros
Explanation:
What would it look like to fly over an asteroid?
Spacecraft NEAR Shoemaker in orbit around
asteroid 433 Eros found out earlier this month
when it recorded its first fly-over sequence.
The
saddle region of the
Sun-orbiting space-mountain appears to zip past the camera in
this condensed hour-long time-lapse sequence.
The spacecraft was orbiting about 200 kilometers above the
asteroid.
Movies such as this are
scientifically useful
for discerning between regions that are
naturally dark and regions that have their
brightness dominated by shadows.
The week before, a bright
X-ray burst from the
Sun allowed NEAR's
X-ray spectrometer to
detect the presence of several
elements on Eros' surface by their X-ray
fluorescent signatures.
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.
