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Impact at High Noon
 Laurel - April 14, 2000 - For people who live in mountain valleys, daylight can be a short-lived experience. Mountains to the east make the Sun rise later in the morning, while mountains to the west make the Sun set earlier in the evening. The brevity of daytime in a valley is accentuated during the shortened days of winter.

The floor of the 5.5-kilometer (3.4-mile) diameter impact crater that dominates one face of Eros experiences the ultimate in short daylight hours.

Three factors conspire to make this true. Firstly, Eros rotates rapidly, once every 5.27 hours. Secondly, the crater's 0.9-kilometer (0.56-mile) high walls tend to block direct sunlight from the floor, even while the outside of the crater is illuminated. Thirdly, during the current season on Eros, the Sun never makes it high in the sky in this location.

This NEAR Shoemaker image, taken April 1, 2000, from a range of 209 kilometers (130 miles), caught the crater near local noon with the Sun highest in the sky. On that day, a hardy astronaut standing at the bottom of the crater would have experienced 1 hour and 45 minutes of daylight.

  • NEAR Mission Center

    NEAR NEWS
     NEAR Set To Circularize Orbit
     Laurel - April 11, 2000 - NEAR Shoemaker is presently in a nominal 200 km x 100 km transfer orbit around Eros. The spacecraft was placed in this orbit April 2, 2000 at 9:03 p.m. EST when Orbit Correction Maneuver 3 (OCM 3) was executed. NEAR Shoemaker will remain in this transfer orbit conducting Science observations until April 11, 2000 at 5:12 p.m. EST when Orbit Correction Maneuver 4 (OCM 4) will circularize the orbit at 100 km. As OCM 4 is refined, this burn time could move as much as +/- 1 hour.

  • Eros Desktops:   1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6 - 7 - 8 - 9


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