433 Eros

asteroid · near-Earth object · space rock

Weird potato shape. 433 Eros looks like a lumpy potato floating in space, not a perfect sphere like many planets. Its strange stretched-out shape makes it one of the most unusual asteroids astronomers have ever studied.

Near Earth neighbor. This asteroid belongs to a special group called Amor asteroids that orbit close to Earth, though they don't actually hit us. It comes closer to our planet than many other asteroids do.

Made of stone. 433 Eros is a stony asteroid, meaning it's made mostly of rock and metal rather than ice or dust. This makes it dense and heavy for its size.

Really quite large. Imagine a space rock about 16.8 kilometers across, roughly the size of a small mountain floating in the darkness. That's how big 433 Eros really is.

History maker. 433 Eros was the first asteroid of the Amor group ever discovered, making it super important to scientists studying near-Earth asteroids. It helped us understand that dangerous space rocks orbit closer to home than we thought.