Tryst in space: Craft, asteroid rendezvous
By Ron Cowen
Even NASA sometimes gets a second chance at love. On Feb. 14, a spacecraft 256 million kilometers from Earth finally cozied up to its intended, a peanut-shaped lump of rock called 433 Eros. After 4 years of relentless pursuit through the solar system, including a flubbed embrace a year ago (SN: 1/2/99, p. 7), NASA’s NEAR spacecraft slipped into orbit about the asteroid. This marks the first time that a satellite has rendezvoused with a tiny body. Eros has about twice the area of Manhattan.
“Today is Valentine’s Day to most people, but to me, it’s Christmas Eve,” NEAR project scientist Andrew F. Cheng told reporters at a briefing held Monday at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Md. “I’m watching all the presents pile under the tree.” If all goes according to plan during its yearlong visit, NEAR will map the gravitational field of Eros, determine if the body has a magnetic field, and infer whether the object is solid or a pile of sand. By spiraling in close enough to take the asteroid’s fingerprints—detailed infrared, X-ray, and gamma-ray spectra—the craft may settle an enduring mystery. Astronomers have conflicting evidence on whether asteroids such as Eros, classified as S types, are the parent bodies of ordinary chondrites, the most common meteorites that fall to Earth.