NEAR's Final Approach to Eros (Feb. 12, 2001)

NEAR Shoemaker's multispectral imager (MSI) captured the images in this movie during the spacecraft's controlled descent to Eros on February 12, 2001. Starting from just over 3 miles (5 kilometers) above the surface, the camera moves over cracked and jagged rocks, boulder patches, craters filled with dust and debris, and mysterious areas where the surface seems to have collapsed. The final frame, taken 422 feet (128 meters) above Eros, shows features a few inches across. The black area across the bottom of the last frame indicates a loss of signal, as the spacecraft landed during transmission.

Built and managed by The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, 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