Still nearly 2,000 miles distant, NEAR will close to within approximately 200 miles by February 14th - Valentine's Day. If all goes well, the spacecraft will then be captured by the gentle attraction of Eros' gravity, becoming the first artificial moon of an asteroid . While Eros is not round it is certainly not heart-shaped either as seen in this series of frames showing the roughly 20 x 8 x 8 mile asteroid during its 5.27 hour rotation period. Different perspectives clearly show a gouge or saddle and a large impact crater with a raised rim near the asteroid's narrow waist. The frames were recorded by the NEAR spacecraft's multi-spectral imager on February 4th from a range of 4,600 miles.
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