+

NEAR Shoemaker

Brittany Griner

+About spacecraft

renamed after its 1996 launch in honor of planetary scientist Eugene Shoemaker

Was a robotic space probe designed by Johns Hopkins for NASA

Was built to study the near-earth asteroid Eros from close orbit for a period of a year

+Missions

Primary mission of NEAR was to return data on the major properties of Eros

Secondary mission was to study interactions of solar winds

The data gathered would be used to understand the characteristics of asteroids in general

Also to study the conditions in the earlier solar system

+Results

NEAR flew past the main-belt asteroid 253 Mathilde, providing the closest view of an asteroid to date and the first look at a C-type asteroid

NEAR flew within 750 miles of the highly cratered Mathilde, taking images and measurements for 25 minutes

NEAR entered into a year-long orbit around Eros on February 14, 2000

The spacecraft circled 21-mile-long potato-shaped space rock at altitudes from 2 to 35 miles, revealing it to be much more exciting and geologically diverse than scientists had expected

+Results

Data suggests that Eros is a cracked but solid rock, with a density similar to Earth’s crust

Eros is geologically active with grooves, ridges, and many craters altered by mass motions of dust and rocky debris believed to be up to 300 feet deep

The final images show clusters of boulders, and sharply delineated areas in some crater bottoms, indicating the story of Eros's composition is still emerging

The NEAR mission returned more 160,000 detailed images

+