Publication Date:
2000-09-23
Description:
We determined the mass of asteroid 433 Eros, its lower order gravitational harmonics, and rotation state, using ground-based Doppler and range tracking of the Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous (NEAR)-Shoemaker spacecraft and images of the asteroid's surface landmarks. The mass of Eros is (6.687 +/- 0.003) x 10(18) grams, which, coupled with our volume estimate, implies a bulk density of 2. 67 +/- 0.03 grams per cubic centimeter. The asteroid appears to have a uniform density distribution. The right ascension and declination of the rotation pole are 11.37 +/- 0.05 and 17.22 +/- 0.05 degrees, respectively, and at least over the short term, the rotation state of Eros is stable with no measurable free precession of the spin pole. Escape velocities on the surface vary from 3.1 to 17.2 meters per second. The dynamical environment of Eros suggests that it is covered with regolith and that one might expect material transport toward the deepest potential wells in the saddle and 5.5-kilometer crater regions.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Notes: 〈/span〉Yeomans -- Antreasian -- Barriot -- Chesley -- Dunham -- Farquhar -- Giorgini -- Helfrich -- Konopliv -- McAdams -- Miller -- Owen Jr -- Scheeres -- Thomas -- Veverka -- Williams -- New York, N.Y. -- Science. 2000 Sep 22;289(5487):2085-8.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Author address: 〈/span〉Navigation and Mission Design Section, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA 91109, USA. Department of Terrestrial and Planetary Geodesy, Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales, Toulouse, France. Applied.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Record origin:〈/span〉 〈a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11000104" target="_blank"〉PubMed〈/a〉
Print ISSN:
0036-8075
Electronic ISSN:
1095-9203
Topics:
Biology
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Chemistry and Pharmacology
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Computer Science
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Medicine
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Natural Sciences in General
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Physics
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