Eros

Eros belongs among the small near-Earth asteroids. This means that its orbit around the Sun gets close to the orbit of the Earth. Eros is a typical stone asteroid - it has an irregular shape (the length is roughly 34 km) and its surface is dotted with multiple impact craters. The center of Eros has no structure and is composed of randomly arranged stone material, comprising mainly of the silicates. On the surface of Eros a layer of stone dust and rocky debris with thickness between a few centimeters and few decimeters can be found. This material is the remnant of collisions with smaller cosmic bodies.



Eros is one of the few asteroids, which has been examined from the immediate vicinity by a spacecraft, and the first ever asteroid on which a spacecraft has landed. It happened on February 12th, 2001, when the American spacecraft NEAR Shoemaker landed on the surface of Eros. The spacecraft was examining the asteroid in several previous years from its orbit.