Witt was taking a two-hour exposure of Beta Aquarii to secure astrometric positions of asteroid 185 Eunike. ===Later studies=== During the opposition of 1900–1901, a worldwide program was launched to make parallax measurements of Eros to determine the solar parallax (or distance to the Sun), with the results published in 1910 by Arthur Hinks of Cambridge.
Witt was taking a two-hour exposure of Beta Aquarii to secure astrometric positions of asteroid 185 Eunike. ===Later studies=== During the opposition of 1900–1901, a worldwide program was launched to make parallax measurements of Eros to determine the solar parallax (or distance to the Sun), with the results published in 1910 by Arthur Hinks of Cambridge.
A similar program was then carried out, during a closer approach, in 1930–1931 by Harold Spencer Jones.
The value of the Astronomical Unit (roughly the Earth-Sun distance) obtained by this program was considered definitive until 1968, when radar and dynamical parallax methods started producing more precise measurements. Eros was the first asteroid detected by the Arecibo Observatory's radar system. Eros was one of the first asteroids visited by a spacecraft, the first one orbited, and the first one soft-landed on.
During rare oppositions, every 81 years, such as in 1975 and 2056, Eros can reach a magnitude of +7.0, which is brighter than Neptune and brighter than any main-belt asteroid except 1 Ceres, 4 Vesta and, rarely, 2 Pallas and 7 Iris.
The rarely used adjectival form of the name is Erotian . ==NEAR Shoemaker== The NEAR Shoemaker probe visited Eros twice, first with a 1998 flyby, and then by orbiting it in 2000 when it extensively photographed its surface.
NASA spacecraft NEAR Shoemaker entered orbit around Eros in 2000, and landed in 2001. ===Mars-crosser=== Eros is a Mars-crosser asteroid, the first known to come within the orbit of Mars.
The rarely used adjectival form of the name is Erotian . ==NEAR Shoemaker== The NEAR Shoemaker probe visited Eros twice, first with a 1998 flyby, and then by orbiting it in 2000 when it extensively photographed its surface.
NASA spacecraft NEAR Shoemaker entered orbit around Eros in 2000, and landed in 2001. ===Mars-crosser=== Eros is a Mars-crosser asteroid, the first known to come within the orbit of Mars.
On 12 February 2001, at the end of its mission, it landed on the asteroid's surface using its maneuvering jets. This was the first time a Near Earth asteroid was closely visited by a spacecraft. ==Physical characteristics== Surface gravity depends on the distance from a spot on the surface to the center of a body's mass.
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