Sunset on Eros

Eros' irregular shape gives rise to some stunning vistas at the time of sunrise or sunset. On March 6, 2000, the imager on the NEAR Shoemaker spacecraft caught this view of a stunning sunset. In the pitch black foreground the Sun has already set, but just over the horizon another part of the asteroid remains lit. Eros' rotation period is just 5 hours, 16 minutes, so in the course one 24-hour Earth day an observer on Eros would be treated to four full cycles of sunrises and sunsets.

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.