Eros Full-Rotation Movie
Credit: Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, NASA
NEAR Shoemaker captured this movie on December 3-4, 2000, while in orbit 200 kilometers (125 miles) from the center of Eros. Covering a full rotation of the 21-mile-long asteroid, the movie opens with a look at one of Eros' battered ends and a sweep over the saddle-shaped depression named Himeros. The sequence then includes a view of Shoemaker Regio - the large boulder patch beside Himeros - before swinging over the opposite end and providing a stunning view of a sunset inside Psyche, the asteroid's large, 5-kilometer (3-mile) impact crater. The movie wraps up with a return to the asteroid's heavily cratered tip.