The camera on NEAR Shoemaker caught this long view of Eros' southern hemisphere during a stereo imaging sequence on September 6, 2000, from an orbital altitude of 101 kilometers (63 miles). This view adds context to high-resolution images taken from lower orbits with "footprints" only one-fourth to one-third the size. Craters shown in the left foreground of the image are about 1.3 kilometers (0.8 miles) across.

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.