15 years to the first contact of the earth apparatus with an asteroid

On February 14, 2000, the NEAR Shoemaker spacecraft entered the orbit of the asteroid Eros, and a year later it landed on its surface and transmitted data to Earth for two more weeks. Along the way, which took several years, NEAR Shoemaker took 500 shots of the asteroid Matilda and photographed the Earth from the direction of Antarctica.



The device was launched on February 17, 1996 from Cape Canaveral on the Delta-2 launch vehicle. On June 26 and 27, 1997, the spacecraft transmitted five hundred images of the asteroid Matilda to Earth. This photograph was taken from a distance of 1,800 kilometers from the asteroid, sunlight falling on it from the right above. Image scale - 230 meters per pixel. The asteroid is very dark, it reflects only 4% of the surface, but the device was able to photograph it using a multispectral camera.



This image of Matilda is composed of four photographs taken from a distance of 2,400 kilometers. We see a piece the size of 59 by 47 kilometers.
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Here we see three asteroids on one scale - Matilda, Gaspra (named after an urban-type settlement in the Crimea, where Leo Tolstoy spent many years) and Ida.



Asteroid from a distance of 1200 kilometers. At Matilda at least five craters are more than 20 km in diameter, they occupy about 60% of the entire surface.



Images of Matilda from two angles.



After the passage of the asteroid Matilda, the spacecraft returned to Earth to change the trajectory, where it took this photo of the planet from Antarctica.



The last time they tried to communicate with the apparatus was in December 2002. From the surface of the asteroid “NEAR Shoemaker” transmitted data within two weeks.