Spacecraft cozies up to distant asteroid

larger   Canine snack?

larger   View   from low orbit

larger   Horizon view

larger   The saddle wall

May 10, 2000
Web posted at: 4:41 PM EDT (2041 GMT)

By Richard Stenger
CNN Interactive Staff Writer

(CNN) -- First, there was the man in the moon. Then, there was the face on Mars. Now a NASA probe has uncovered a new fanciful feature in the solar system: The dog on the asteroid.

Circling the space rock Eros millions of miles from Earth, the NEAR Shoemaker snapped the supposedly canine-like picture after settling into its prime mission orbit, only 31 miles (50 km) from the center of the asteroid.

"With a little imagination, the shadow dominating the right side of the frame could be seen as a small, long-eared terrier bending over to sniff his dinner," project scientists said in a statement.

The robot ship recorded the image and others last week. Features as small as 13 feet (4 meters) are visible in the photos, the most detailed ever obtained of an asteroid.

The series highlight other features on the peanut-shaped space rock, like eerie crater shadows, broad slopes, steep escarpments and crowded boulder fields.

The current distance is ideal for NEAR Shoemaker to train its instruments on the slowly tumbling space rock, which is roughly twice the size of Manhattan.

NEAR (Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous) Shoemaker is now "close enough to the asteroid to measure composition, search for a magnetic field and study the internal structure," project scientist Andrew Cheng said in a statement.

The first artificial satellite around an asteroid, NEAR Shoemaker will conclude a yearlong orbital study of Eros in February. Its current orbital speed is 7 mph (11 km/h).

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Stargazing

NEAR Shoemaker and Eros are more than 100 million miles (160 million km) from Earth. The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland, manages the NASA mission.

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April 28, 2000
Spacecraft moves within 62 miles of asteroid
April 14, 2000
NEAR spacecraft dips closer to asteroid
April 3, 2000
NASA releases 2nd movie of asteroid Eros
March 27, 2000
Asteroid orbiter returns bounty of data, images
March 14, 2000

NASA Homepage
Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous Mission

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