Astronomy Picture of the Day

    Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our
      fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation
                    written by a professional astronomer.

                              2021 February 13

                                 Stereo Eros
                  Image Credit: NEAR Project, JHU APL, NASA

   Explanation: Get out your red/blue glasses and float next to asteroid
   433 Eros. Orbiting the Sun once every 1.8 years, the near-Earth
   asteroid is named for the Greek god of love. Still, its shape more
   closely resembles a lumpy potato than a heart. Eros is a diminutive 40
   x 14 x 14 kilometer world of undulating horizons, craters, boulders and
   valleys. Its unsettling scale and unromantic shape are emphasized in
   this mosaic of images from the NEAR Shoemaker spacecraft processed to
   yield a stereo anaglyphic view. Along with dramatic chiaroscuro, NEAR
   Shoemaker's 3-D imaging provided important measurements of the
   asteroid's landforms and structures, and clues to the origin of this
   city-sized chunk of Solar System. The smallest features visible here
   are about 30 meters across. Beginning on February 14, 2000, historic
   NEAR Shoemaker spent a year in orbit around Eros, the first spacecraft
   to orbit an asteroid. Twenty years ago, on February 12 2001, it landed
   on Eros, the first ever landing on an asteroid's surface. NEAR
   Shoemaker's final transmission from the surface of Eros was on February
   28, 2001.

                   Tomorrow's picture: a name for NGC 2237
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       Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
            NASA Official: Phillip Newman Specific rights apply.
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