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Eros rotation movie Animated GIF (159 KB) || QuickTime (3.6 MB) On February 10, four days before NEAR's insertion into orbit around Eros, the spacecraft's Multispectral Imager took this movie of the asteroid's rotation over one 5.27-hour Eros "day", from a range of 2050 miles (3300 kilometers).
Features as small as a 1100 feet (330 meters) across can be seen. The most prominent, sharp-rimmed impact crater is on the opposite side of Eros from a huge, hollowed-out gouge, which may also have been caused by an impact. Between these features, and towards the ends of the "fat banana" shape of Eros, the asteroid's surface is covered with smaller craters.
(Images 0125647625-0125686773)
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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.