Donald Savage
Headquarters, Washington, DC              September 21, 2000
(Phone:  202/358-1547)

Michael Buckley
Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, Laurel, MD
(Phone:  240/228-7536)

Bill Steigerwald
Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD
(Phone:  301/286-5017)

Martha Heil
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA
(Phone:  818/354-0850)

NOTE TO EDITORS:  N00-045

ASTEROID EROS YIELDS 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