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PIA02956: Eros' Littered Surface from Low Altitude
 Target Name:  Eros
 Is a satellite of:  Sol (our sun)
 Mission:  NEAR Shoemaker 
 Spacecraft:  NEAR Shoemaker
 Instrument:  Multi-Spectral Imager 
 Product Size:  302 x 472 pixels (w x h)
 Produced By:  Johns Hopkins University/APL
 Addition Date:  2000-08-05
 Primary Data Set:  NEAR Home Page
 Full-Res TIFF:  PIA02956.tif (94.15 kB)
 Full-Res JPEG:  PIA02956.jpg (17.25 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:

NEAR Shoemaker's incredibly detailed images from the low orbit around Eros continue to surpass the expectations of the mission team. This picture, taken July 24, 2000, from an orbital altitude of 36 kilometers (22 miles), shows a region about 900 meters (3,000 feet) across. Some of the largest boulders in the scene, such as the broken one at the upper left, show angular shapes. Many smaller boulders litter the scene; the smallest ones visible here are about 6 meters (19 feet) across.

Regolith seems to have banked up against several rocks. In some places, like the large crater below the center of the picture, regolith also appears to have filled, or "ponded," in low spots.

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:
2000-08-05