Asteroid 433 Eros (1898 DQ) is scheduled to make a close pass to Earth on January 31st, 2012. The banana-shaped, stony asteroid will come to within 16,546,000 miles of Earth at approximately 11 AM UTC time.

On January 17th the asteroid is 17,754,000 miles away with just over a million miles to travel before it gets closest to Earth. This may not seem important to the average listener, but for astronomers who like to know what’s going on in the space outside our atmosphere, 433 Eros gives us something to pay attention to now and in the future.

The asteroid is classified as an NEA (near-Earth asteroid) and a Mars-crosser. It was discovered in 1898 and was the first asteroid to be orbited by an unmanned space vehicle sent from Earth in the year 2000. Prior to taking up orbit around 433 Eros, the United States used another NEAR-Shoemaker space vehicle for a flyby of the orbiting asteroid.

Those missions resulted in an understanding of the physical properties of Eros. A BBC science and technology report published in 1999 tells the public of what NASA learned about the asteroid.
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