NEAR Shoemaker Touchdown Coming Up

iso9k writes "As reported from Space.com: The first asteroid touchdown in history is slated for Feb. 12 as NEAR Shoemaker attempts to gently drop itself onto the battered and boulder-strewn surface of Asteroid 433 Eros. The NEAR team itself is out of money for operations. They are out of Deep Space Network tracking time. And the probe itself almost out of fuel. This will be the first time that the United States has been to another body where we are the first ones to land. The race's to the Moon, Venus and Mars were won by by the former Soviet Union. The chances of the probe making a successful touchdown: less than 1%. On the eve of Feb 11 and 12 look up to the heavens and wish our little probe good luck and thank it for its dedication and service."

Comments

The NEAR Picture of the Day

[Royster]

I've been checking out the picture of the day since this time last year. There is some awfully interesting geology going on up there.

Eros is covered in regolith. As it slides down the walls of the craters, it exposes new surface which hasn't been darkened by the solar wind. Old craters melt into the background. Fine regolith pools in the bottom of craters.

I imagine that some impacts jolt the asteroid enough to shake everything up a little. I the microgravity near Eros, it shouldn't take much of a jolt to make something "airborne". Much of the same physics that describes shaking containers of different sized objects must describe what's going on here.