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NEAR Shoemaker

NEAR Shoemaker. Brittany Griner. About spacecraft. renamed after its 1996 launch in honor of planetary scientist Eugene Shoemaker Was a robotic space probe designed by Johns Hopkins for NASA Was built to study the near-earth asteroid Eros from close orbit for a period of a year. Missions.

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NEAR Shoemaker

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  1. NEAR Shoemaker Brittany Griner

  2. About spacecraft • renamed after its 1996 launch in honor of planetary scientist Eugene Shoemaker • Was a robotic space probe designed by Johns Hopkins for NASA • Was built to study the near-earth asteroid Eros from close orbit for a period of a year

  3. Missions • Primary mission of NEAR was to return data on the major properties of Eros • Secondary mission was to study interactions of solar winds • The data gathered would be used to understand the characteristics of asteroids in general • Also to study the conditions in the earlier solar system

  4. Results • NEAR flew past the main-belt asteroid 253 Mathilde, providing the closest view of an asteroid to date and the first look at a C-type asteroid • NEAR flew within 750 miles of the highly cratered Mathilde, taking images and measurements for 25 minutes • NEAR entered into a year-long orbit around Eros on February 14, 2000 • The spacecraft circled 21-mile-long potato-shaped space rock at altitudes from 2 to 35 miles, revealing it to be much more exciting and geologically diverse than scientists had expected

  5. Results • Data suggests that Eros is a cracked but solid rock, with a density similar to Earth’s crust • Eros is geologically active with grooves, ridges, and many craters altered by mass motions of dust and rocky debris believed to be up to 300 feet deep • The final images show clusters of boulders, and sharply delineated areas in some crater bottoms, indicating the story of Eros's composition is still emerging • The NEAR mission returned more 160,000 detailed images

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