You wonder what this could mean. You have heard in the past that the extinction of the dinosaurs sixty-five million years ago might have been linked to a devastating, asteroid impact near the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico. You begin to wonder about these rocky fragments of space rubble.
Asteroids hold clues to the origin and evolution of our solar system and Earth.
NASA has planned a number of missions to study asteroids. NEAR was launched in February of 1996 and will reach its destination, the asteroid 433 Eros, in January of 1999. The mission's investigations of Eros will directly address some of the mysteries of asteroids, their relationship to comets and meteorites, and ultimately their place in the history of our solar system. NEAR is equipped with six instruments that will begin our first close look at an asteroid. The Multispectral Imager will take numerous images of 433 Eros.