[meteorite-list] NEAR Shoemaker Image Of The Day - February 2, 2001

From: Ron Baalke <baalke_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu Apr 22 09:41:06 2004
Message-ID: <200102021703.JAA05732_at_zagami.jpl.nasa.gov>

                   NEAR image of the day for 2001 Feb 02

                     http://near.jhuapl.edu/iod/20010202/

                      NEAR Shoemaker's Touchdown Site

          When NEAR Shoemaker makes its controlled descent to the
          surface of Eros on February 12, 2001, it will do so at
          the boundary of two distinctly different geologic
          provinces of the asteroid. The main image shows the
          touchdown site (yellow circle) on the edge of the
          saddle-shaped feature Himeros. The inset is a mosaic of
          eight images showing the site in the context of the
          eastern part of the southern hemisphere. In both views,
          south is to the top, and the terminator (the imaginary
          line dividing day from night) falls near the equator. To
          the south lies heavily cratered terrain at southern
          mid-latitudes. To the north (bottom) is the interior of
          Himeros, whose lower density of superposed craters
          indicates relatively recent geologic activity.

          During the descent, NEAR Shoemaker will take a strip of
          more than 70 images crossing both provinces, some
          showing details of the surface smaller than 10
          centimeters (4 inches) across.
          --------------------------------------------------------
          Built and managed by The Johns Hopkins University
          Applied Physics Laboratory, Laurel, Maryland,
          NEAR-Shoemaker was the first spacecraft launched in
          NASA's Discovery Program of low-cost, small-scale
          planetary missions. See the NEAR web site for more
          details (http://near.jhuapl.edu) .
Received on Fri 02 Feb 2001 12:03:20 PM PST