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Eros satellite search image mosaic As NEAR approached Eros on January 28, 2000, it took a series of 129 one-second exposures in order to hunt for small, sub-pixel moons that might be orbiting around Eros. 43 short exposures were also taken, for a clear picture of any satellite large enough to be resolvable. At the time, NEAR was about 11,600 miles (18,700 kilometers) from Eros, a distance nearly half again the diameter of Earth.
Like a patchwork quilt, the pictures covered a part of the star-background roughly the size of a hand extended at arm's length. NEAR could have detected a satellite of Eros roughly the size of a small building, which would appear about ten times as faint as the faintest star that can be seen with the human eye. Careful examination of about 500 star-like points of light in these pictures showed that they were all known background stars. So, unlike a few other asteroids like Ida with small moonlets, Eros appears to have no natural satellites orbiting around it.
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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. Feedback to Scott Murchie. Scott.Murchie@jhuapl.edu.