Orbiting and landing on an asteroid

Asteroids, also known as minor planets, are small, rocky bodies that have been left over from the formation of planets about 4.5 billion years ago. Simultaneous discovery The Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous, later renamed NEAR Shoemaker, was a low-cost mission and the first to be flown under NASA’s Discovery programme. Even though its primary objective was studying Eros, NEAR performed a 25-minute flyby of the asteroid 253 Mathilde on June 27, 1997. On February 14, 2000 – Valentine’s Day – NEAR finally entered into orbit around Eros, an asteroid named after the god of love in Greek mythology. The photographs and information returned by NEAR Shoemaker not only helped map more than 70% of the minor planet’s surface and provide data about its interior, but also showed that Eros had no magnetic field.