433 Eros

Get ready to meet 433 Eros, a super interesting space rock! It's not round like a ball, but more like a lumpy potato. If you could stretch it out, it would be about as long as 15 school buses lined up end-to-end. That's a lot of buses! It's also one of the biggest space rocks that gets close to Earth, which makes it extra special for scientists.

A long, long time ago, in 1898, a clever astronomer named C. G. Witt was looking up at the night sky with his telescope. He discovered 433 Eros all by himself! It was the very first space rock of its kind to be found. He found it zipping around in space between Mars and Earth. It’s named after a god from old Greek stories, Eros, who was known for love.

Scientists are super excited about 433 Eros because it's a near-Earth object. This means it sometimes comes close to our planet. It's also the first asteroid that a spaceship, called NEAR Shoemaker, ever got to visit and study up close! It even landed on it! This helped us learn so much about what asteroids are made of and how they move around.

433 Eros is a stony asteroid, which means it's made of rocks and minerals, kind of like the ground you walk on. It travels in a path, or orbit, between Mars and Earth. Sometimes it's closer to Earth, and sometimes it's farther away. It’s been traveling through space for billions of years, watching planets come and go!