Description
NEAR Shoemaker captured this view of Eros' eastern hemisphere on September 9, 2000, from an orbital altitude of about 100 kilometers (62 miles). The spacecraft is in a high enough orbit to "see" the overall global shape of Eros as it did earlier in the mission, but from a different perspective. The eastern end's blocky, angular appearance likely results from large impacts suffered by Eros early in its history. The image also shows several long ridges and a cluster of boulders. The entire scene is about 4 kilometers (2.5 miles) across.
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.edu/ for more details.
