September 21, 2000
NOTE TO EDITORS:  N00-045

ASTEROID EROS YEILDS SECRETS FROM TIME
BEFORE EARTH WAS BORN 

     The asteroid Eros is so ancient it could have witnessed the 
formation of the Earth, according to findings from NASA's Near 
Earth Asteroid Rendezvous (NEAR) Shoemaker spacecraft published 
today.  

Four scientific papers published in the September 22 issue of the 
journal Science represent the largest one-time release of 
scientific data about Eros since the mission began. The NEAR 
Shoemaker spacecraft has been in orbit around the primitive 
Manhattan-sized asteroid since last February.

The four scientific teams publishing this week include the NEAR X-
ray Gamma-Ray Spectrometer (XGRS) team, the Multispectral Imager 
and now-silent Near-Infrared Spectrometer team, the Laser 
Rangefinder team and the Radio Science team.

The NEAR mission is managed by the Johns Hopkins University 
Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, MD, for NASA's Office 
of Space Science. 

The NEAR Shoemaker web site contains the latest results and high-
resolution images and information:
                  http://near.jhuapl.edu

Information on the XGRS result can be found at: 
http://www.gsfc.nasa.gov/GSFC/SpaceSci/solarexp/NEARXGRS1.htm
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