Successful asteroid landing | Techday, February 12th
On this TECHDAY in history, on February 12th 2001, NEAR Shoemaker spacecraft touched down on asteroid Eros, the first ever to make a successful landing on an asteroid. Planetary scientist Eugene Shoemaker named Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous – Shoemaker (NEAR Shoemaker). The robotic space probe meant to study the near-Earth asteroid Eros from close orbit over a period of a year. This spacecraft was the first to successfully orbit an asteroid and then land on it.
After the landing, the mission terminated just over two weeks later. Data collected by the spacecraft would shed light to our knowledge on asteroids in general, their characteristics and relations to meteoroids and comets as well. Asteroid 433 Eros was the second largest near-Earth asteroid. Researchers aimed to link this particular one to other meteorites recovered in Earth, in a causal relation with other S-type asteroids as well.
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Author: PC-GR
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