Under the Saddle

Feb. 17, 2001

This image of asteroid Eros, taken by NASA's NEAR Shoemaker on Sept. 9, 2000, shows Eros' saddle, and curving around at upper right is the large bright-and-dark groove.

NEAR Shoemaker took the four images in this mosaic on September 9, 2000, from an altitude of about 100 kilometers (62 miles). NEAR Shoemaker's current orbit affords a global look at Eros much like earlier in the mission, but from a more southerly perspective. The top of this mosaic shows Eros' saddle, and curving around at upper right is the large bright-and-dark groove. The bright curved feature is a broad topographic rise separating the saddle region from the most boulder-rich area on the asteroid .

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.

Under the Saddle

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