NEAR image of the day for 2001 Jan 03
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Eros with All its Warts NEAR Shoemaker took this picture of a rather typical-looking region of Eros on December 26, 2000, from an orbital altitude of 37 kilometers (23 miles). The picture captures the essence of a change in the appearance of the asteroid's surface at small scales. At scales of more than a few tens of meters, or about 100 feet, the most abundant type of landform is craters. At smaller sizes the surface is dominated by boulders, giving it a "warty" appearance. For reference, the large boulder on the floor of the crater in the middle of the picture is about 20 meters (70 feet) across, and the whole scene is about 0.8 kilometers (0.5 miles) across.
(Image 0153208540)
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Built and managed by The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, Laurel, Maryland, NEAR-Shoemaker was the first spacecraft launched in NASA's Discovery Program of low-cost, small-scale planetary missions. See the NEAR web site for more details. Feedback to Scott Murchie. Scott.Murchie@jhuapl.edu.