The Environs of NEAR Shoemaker’s Landing Site

This image mosaic of Eros' southern hemisphere, taken by NEAR Shoemaker on November 30, 2000, offers a long-distance look at the cratered terrain south of where the spacecraft will touch down on February 12, 2001. In this view, south is to the top and the landing site itself is just into the shadows, slightly left of center. The length of the asteroid is 33 kilometers (21 miles).

Built and managed by The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, Laurel, Maryland, NEAR was the first spacecraft launched in NASA's Discovery Program of low-cost, small-scale planetary missions. See the NEAR web page at http://near.jhuapl.edu/ for more details.