Stereo Eros
Explanation:
Get out your
red/blue
glasses
and float next to
asteroid
433 Eros.
Orbiting the Sun once every 1.8 years, the near-Earth asteroid
is named for the Greek god of love.
Still, its shape more closely resembles a lumpy potato than a heart.
Eros is a diminutive 40 x 14 x 14 kilometer world of undulating horizons,
craters, boulders and valleys.
Its unsettling scale and unromantic shape are emphasized in
this mosaic
of images from the NEAR Shoemaker spacecraft
processed to yield a stereo anaglyphic view.
Along with dramatic
chiaroscuro,
NEAR Shoemaker's 3-D imaging provided important measurements
of the asteroid's landforms and structures, and
clues to the origin of this city-sized chunk of Solar System.
The smallest features visible here are about 30 meters across.
Beginning on February 14, 2000, historic NEAR Shoemaker
spent a year in orbit around Eros,
the first spacecraft to orbit an asteroid.
Twenty years ago, on February 12 2001, it landed on Eros,
the first ever landing on an asteroid's surface.
NEAR Shoemaker's
final transmission from the surface of Eros was on
February 28, 2001.
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.
