A Valentine s Day present that has been a sweet success. Shortly after it began circling Eros, the spacecraft was renamed NEAR Shoemaker, after the late space geologist, Gene Shoemaker . Every bit of this chunk of space flotsam has fallen under NEAR Shoemaker s array of instruments and sensors. Eros is photogenic , to say the least. Not a bad side to the giant shoe-looking world that flips heel over toe.
Scientists now have solid data on the oddly shaped space rock.
Eros is surely a fractured chip off a larger body. Eros is down for the count. The Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous spacecraft. Month after month, NEAR Shoemaker has been romancing the stone. The rock s uniform density is about the same as Earth s crust .