Back 433 Eros AF 433 إروس Arabic 433 إروس (كويكب) ARZ 433 Eros AST 433 Eros AZ (433) Эрас BE 433 Ерос Bulgarian 433 Eros BS (433) Eros Catalan (433) Эрос CE
 This picture of Eros shows the view looking from one end of the asteroid across the gouge on its underside and toward the opposite end. | |
| Discovery | |
|---|---|
| Discovered by | Carl Gustav Witt |
| Discovery date | August 13, 1898 |
| Designations | |
| 1898 DQ; 1956 PC | |
| Amor, Mars-crosser asteroid | |
| Orbital characteristics | |
| Epoch October 22, 2004 (JD 2453300.5) | |
| Aphelion | 266.762 Gm (1.783 AU) |
| Perihelion | 169.548 Gm (1.133 AU) |
| 218.155 Gm (1.458 AU) | |
| Eccentricity | 0.223 |
| 643.219 d (1.76 a) | |
Average orbital speed | 24.36 km/s |
| 320.215° | |
| Inclination | 10.829° |
| 304.401° | |
| 178.664° | |
| Physical characteristics | |
| Dimensions | 13×13×33 km |
| Mass | 7.2×1015 kg |
Mean density | 2.4 g/cm³ |
| 0.0059 m/s² | |
| 0.0103 km/s | |
| 0.2194 d (5 h 16 min) | |
| Albedo | 0.16 |
| Temperature | ~227 K |
Spectral type | S |
| +7.1 to +15 | |
| 11.16 | |
433 Eros is the first Near-Earth asteroid (NEA) that was found. It was named after the Greek god of love, Eros (Greek Ἔρως). It is an S-type asteroid about 13 × 13 × 33 km in size, the second-biggest near-Earth asteroid (NEA) after 1036 Ganymed. It belongs to the Amors. It is the first asteroid that was known to cross inside the orbit of Mars. Eros is one of the few NEAs bigger than 10 km across. It is thought to be bigger than the asteroid that made the Chicxulub crater in the Yucatán and probably caused the extinction of the dinosaurs.[1]
On January 31, 2012, Eros passed close to Earth at 0.1787 astronomical units (16.6 million miles). This is about 700 times farther from the Earth than the moon is. It had brightness of +8.1 visual magnitude.
During rare oppositions, every 81 years, such as in 1975 and 2056, Eros will be directly away from the sun, as seen from Earth. Then, Eros can reach a magnitude of +7.1, which is brighter than Neptune and brighter than any main belt asteroid except 4 Vesta (and sometimes 2 Pallas and 7 Iris). At opposition, the asteroid actually appears to stop in place when compared to stars in the sky. Unlike most objects in the solar system, it never appears to be retrograde (back-track across the sky).
Eros was visited by the NEAR Shoemaker probe, which orbited it, taking many pictures of its surface. On February 12, 2001, at the end of its mission, NEAR landed on the asteroid's surface using its maneuvering jets.
Objects in an orbit like Eros can exist for only a few hundred million years before the orbit is changed by the effects of gravity. Simulations suggest that Eros may evolve into an Earth-crosser within 2 million years (Michel et al., 1996).
The adjectival form which is not used a lot of the name Eros is Erotian.
- ↑ Dividing the mass of 433 Eros by its density gives a volume of 3000 km3, while the estimated 5 km radius of the (assumed spherical) Chicxulub Crater impactor yields a volume of only about 520 km3.