433 Eros is an S-type asteroid that was discovered on Aug. 13, 1898 by Gustav Witt, director of the Urania observatory in Berlin, and independently on the same day by Auguste H.P. Charlois at Nice, France. It is the largest of the near-Earth asteroids, with dimensions 34.4 × 11.2 × 11.2 km, and an orbit semi-major axis distance of 1.4576 AU (a member of the Amor group).  The NEAR spacecraft moved into orbit around Eros on Valentine's Day, Feb. 14, 2000.  After nearly a year in orbit, during which time the spacecraft was renamed "NEAR Shoemaker" in honor of astrogeology pioneer Eugene Shoemaker, the mission carried out humanity's first asteroid landing on Feb. 12, 2001.

433 Eros

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The Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous (NEAR) mission to the near-earth asteroid 433 Eros was launched in Feb. 1996 and carried out Eros orbital operations from Feb. 2000 through Feb. 2001.  It acquired the first comprehensive, spatially resolved measurements of the geomorphology, reflectance spectral properties, and shape of an asteroid, and X-ray and gamma-ray spectral measurements of elemental abundances from orbit and the surface. The ambient magnetic field in the vicinity of Eros was also measured.  On the way to Eros, the spacecraft also performed a flyby of the asteroid 253 Mathilde in June 1997, obtaining image data and a mass determination.

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