The space probe NEAR (for Near-Earth Asteroid Rendezvous) approached the asteroid Eros in February 2001, went into orbit around it, and landed on it on February 12th. From these vantage points the satellite transmitted images of Eros back to Earth so that astronomers now have amazingly sharp pictures of this cosmic lump of rock.
| Maximum Length | 32.7 km |
| Average "radius" | 7.3 km |
| Mass | 6.69x1018 grams |
| Average density | 2.67 grams/cm3 |
| Average distance from Sun | 1.46 AU |
| Orbital Period | 1.76 years |
The images below are some of the many received that are helping astronomers understand more about Asteroids. Click here for Eros Asteroid pictures
In late September 2001, astronomers obtained pictures of the nucleus of Comet Borrelly. This comet is small compared to more famous comets, but its orbit allows a far better and easier view than of is possible for most other comets. Borrelly circles the Sun every 6.8 years, making its orbit about the size of Jupiter's. Approaching to within about 2200 km (about 1300 miles) pictures show that the nucleus is shaped like a zucchini and is about 8 km (about 5 miles) long. The images show clearly jets of gas and dust erupting from the comet.
Click here for pictues of Comet Borrelly
Although spacecraft have given us our best views of asteroids, you can see evidence of asteroidal dust with the naked eye. If you live where skies are clear and dark, and if you look to east about an hour before dawn or the west about an hour after sunset, you may see a very faint triangular wedge of light rising from the horizon. This diffuse glow is called Zodiacal Light and is interplanetary dust, illuminated by the Sun. Just as light from the beam of a movie projector makes dust floating in the air of a theater gleam faintly, so too does the Sun's light make tiny dust particles gleam. The light we see is reflected off the tiny particles (technically, a process called scattering). The wedge shape occurs because the dust is mainly in the plane of the Solar System.