Lowest Altitude Diversity Target Name:   Asteroid Eros Spacecraft:   NEAR Shoemaker Instrument:   Multi-Spectral Imager Produced by:   NASA/JHU Copyright:  NASA Copyright Free Policy Cross Reference:   PIA03136 Date Taken:   25 January 2001

• Asteroid Eros

NEAR Shoemaker took this picture at 8:45 p.m. EST on January 25, 2001, during one of the spacecraft's low-altitude passes over the surface of Eros. The distance to the center of the picture is only 9 kilometers (5.6 miles), so the entire scene is a mere 340 meters (1,120 feet) across. At this scale, we can distinguish features less than 2 meters across. The asteroid's surface appears nearly devoid of obvious craters and is instead dominated by small boulders. In the upper left part of the image, a smooth deposit with a lower density of boulders is in contrast to the very rough-textured material seen at the lower right.