PIA02465: Eros: The First Look from Orbit
In the first hours after insertion into Eros' orbit on Feb 14, 2000, NASA's NEAR Shoemaker spacecraft took these images from a range of 210 miles (330 km) above the surface. The many craters visible served as landmarks for navigating the spacecraft.
 Target Name:  Eros
 Is a satellite of:  Sol (our sun)
 Mission:  NEAR Shoemaker 
 Spacecraft:  NEAR Shoemaker
 Instrument:  Multi-Spectral Imager 
 Product Size:  929 x 900 pixels (w x h) 
 Produced By:  Johns Hopkins University/APL 
 Addition Date:  2000-05-07 
 Primary Data Set:  NEAR Home Page 
 Full-Res TIFF:  PIA02465.tif (105.5 kB)
 Full-Res JPEG:  PIA02465.jpg (59.5 kB)  

Click on the image above to download a moderately sized image in JPEG format (possibly reduced in size from original)

Original Caption Released with Image:

In the first hours after NEAR's insertion into Eros orbit (February 14, 2000), the spacecraft's camera took these images from a range of 210 miles (330 km) above the surface. The many craters visible serve as landmarks for navigating the spacecraft. Mission operators observe such features from different angles, and use triangulation to calculate NEAR's position relative to the surface of Eros. The changes in position over time help to plot NEAR's course in orbit.

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.

Image Credit:
NASA/JPL/JHUAPL

Image Addition Date:
2000-05-07