NEAR Shoemaker

Common card · No. 412887

Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous (NEAR), later renamed NEAR Shoemaker in honor of planetary scientist Eugene Shoemaker, was a robotic space probe developed by the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory for NASA. Launched in 1996, it was designed to study the near-Earth asteroid 433 Eros from orbit over the course of a year. It was the first spacecraft to orbit an asteroid and successfully land on one. In February 2000, NEAR Shoemaker reached Eros and entered orbit around it. On February 12, 2001, the spacecraft landed on the asteroid and was deactivated just over two weeks later. NEAR's primary scientific objectives were to measure Eros's bulk properties, composition, mineralogy, morphology, internal mass distribution, and magnetic field. Secondary objectives included studying the asteroid's regolith, its interactions with the solar wind, possible ongoing activity indicated by dust or gas, and its rotational state. These data were intended to improve understanding of asteroids...

Read on Wikipedia · Image National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), Public domain