Asteroid Eros is a Rock Littered With Boulders
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Detailed analysis of photographs of the asteroid 433 Eros indicate that most of the rubble on its surface came from a large crater, dubbed Shoemaker, on one end of the 21-mile long, potato-shaped rock.
Astronomer Peter Thomas and his colleagues at Cornell University reported in the Sept. 27 issue of Nature that they were able to count 6,760 rocks larger than about 16 yards in diameter strewn over the asteroid’s 434 square miles.
Nearly half of the rocks were in the Shoemaker crater, and the arrangement of the rest indicate they were ejected during the impact that formed the crater.
The team also found that the surface was covered with a layer of fine dust.
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Compiled by Times medical writer Thomas H. Maugh II
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