It was destined to fall into the asteroid or be ejected into space. Farquhar and his colleagues decided they had nothing to lose by attempting a landing. And they had much to gain - mainly images the craft would take on the way down, whether or not it survived the landing. Indeed, during the final descent, NEAR beamed back photographs showing rocks the size of a fist and ridges just inches across. Farquhar said he believed the craft was perhaps 400 feet above the surface when the closest shots were taken.
Scientists are interested in studying asteroids such as Eros because they are so old.
They represent the original materials from which planets formed and therefore hold clues to the origin of the solar system, when these space rocks, along with gas and dust, were being swept up to form planets. Data taken from orbit confirm that Eros is made from pristine interplanetary dust agglomerated into rock. Eros also happens to orbit far closer to Earth than bodies in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. In fact, with its elliptical path around the sun passing in and out of Mars' orbit and close to Earth's, scientists have calculated that it has the potential to collide with Earth in 1.5 million years or so. The potato-shaped asteroid is 21 miles long and eight miles wide.