NEA Eros: On January 31, 2012, Eros will pass the Earth

Visibility from Earth

The asteroid is named after the greek god of Love, Eros.

On January 31, 2012, Eros will pass the Earth at 0.17867 AU (26,729,000 km; 16,608,000 mi),^[11][12]about 70 times the distance to the Moon, with a visual magnitude of +8.1.^[13] During rare oppositions, every 81 years, such as in 1975 and 2056, Eros can reach a magnitude of +7.0,^[3] which is brighter thanNeptune and brighter than any main-belt asteroid except 4 Vesta and, rarely, 2 Pallas and 7 Iris. Under this condition, the asteroid actually appears to stop, but unlike the normal condition for a body in heliocentric conjunction with the Earth, it never appears to be retrograde. Its synodic period of over 846 earth days is among the largest of any body in the Solar System.

433 Eros is a near-Earth asteroid (NEA) discovered in 1898, and the first asteroid to be orbited by a probe (in 2000). It is an S-type asteroid approximately 34.4×11.2×11.2 km in size, the second-largest NEA after 1036 Ganymed, and belongs to the Amor group.

Some quick facts about 433 Eros:

• Eros is the first near-Earth asteroid that we've discovered. It was discovered by Carl Witt on August 13. 1898.
• The asteroid is named after the greek god of Love, Eros.
• Eros is a Type-S asteroid, meaning it consists of stony composition. About 17% of discovered asteroids are of Type-S, which is the second most common type after Type-C(about 75%).
• The temperature on Eros varies from -150 Celsius to 100 Celsius.
• Eros is not round, but instead has a strange peanut like shape, which rotates every 5.27 hours.
• Eros' dimension is 34.4*11.2*11.2 kilometers, making it the second largest near-Earth asteroid after 1036 Ganymed.
• Eros orbits mostly between the Earth and Mars about 172,800,000 kilometers away from the Sun.
• Eros has been visited by a spacecraft called NEAR-Shoemaker. NEAR-Shoemaker launched February 17. 1996 and was placed in orbit around Eros on February 13. 2000. The spacecraft landed on Eros February 12. 2001 and shut down February 28. 2001. NEAR-Shoemaker was the first spacecraft ever to land on an asteroid.

Eros will pass Earth on January 31. 2012 about 16.6 million miles away, which is about 70 times the distance to the moon. It's therefore highly unlikely that it will have any impact on Earth, indirectly or directly.

So Eros wont hit Earth, but there are more important issues related to the year 2012 you should know about. Click Here to learn the truth about whats really going to happen in the year 2012: 

Where well-meaning “experts” went wrong...and why governments of the world ultimatley decided not to tell you the truth.

For Immediate Release:This is not another “sky is falling” warning like y2k...
It's not some made up event by conspiracy theorist. And it's certainly
not something dreamt up for a Hollywood movie...