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PIA02488: A Trio of Craters on Eros
This image from NASA's NEAR Shoemaker shows a heart-shaped depression on asteroid Eros on left image, but right image reveals that the mysterious heart-shaped feature is actually 3 separate craters.
 Target Name:  Eros
 Is a satellite of:  Sol (our sun)
 Mission:  NEAR Shoemaker 
 Spacecraft:  NEAR Shoemaker
 Instrument:  Multi-Spectral Imager 
 Product Size:  1152 x 574 pixels (w x h) 
 Produced By:  Johns Hopkins University/APL 
 Addition Date:  2000-06-10 
 Primary Data Set:  NEAR Home Page 
 Full-Res TIFF:  PIA02488.tif (137.6 kB)
 Full-Res JPEG:  PIA02488.jpg (53.07 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:

The Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous (NEAR) spacecraft snapped the image on the left (Image of the Day Feb. 13, 2000 B) during its approach to Eros on Feb. 11, 2000, from a range of 2590 kilometers (1,609 miles). This image shows a heart-shaped depression about 5 km (3 miles) long. The image mosaic on the right was taken from 204 km (127 miles) on March 3, 2000 and reveals that the mysterious heart-shaped feature is actually 3 separate craters. The oblique lighting conditions and low resolution of the earlier image created the illusion of a heart shape.

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:
2000-06-10