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Score breakdown
· 6 badges
51 pts · Epic
Epic78 pts → Anomaly
Eros, the first asteroid we orbited+22
Notably bright (low H)+8
Has a proper name+8
Near-Earth object+5
Amor: shadows Earth's orbit from outside+4
Stony asteroid+4
Total score51
27 more points to reach Anomaly.
Badges
🌠Near-Earth object· +5
💡Notably bright (low H)· +8
🏷️Has a proper name· +8
💘Amor: shadows Earth's orbit from outside· +4
🧗Stony asteroid· +4
💝Eros, the first asteroid we orbited· +22
✨ Trivia
What it actually is
🛸Its orbit family. An Amor-class object. It approaches Earth's orbit from outside without ever crossing it — named for the asteroid Amor, which swept past at 16 million km in 1932.
🌞Closest approach. At its nearest it comes within 1.13 AU of the Sun — inside the orbit of Mars.
🔁One lap. A single orbit around the Sun takes it about 1.8 years.
🥏How far it roams. Its orbit swings between 1.13 and 1.78 AU from the Sun.
Sense of scale
🧱Sense of scale. In everyday terms it is roughly 1.9× the height of Mount Everest.
🚶Walk around it. Walking its equator at a steady pace, eight hours a day, would take about 1.3 days.
By the numbers
📐Size. Roughly 16.8 km across.
What's in a name
🏷️Named. Notable enough to have earned a proper name, not just a catalogue number.
Properties
albedo
0.25
aphelion au
1.78
designation
433
diameter km
16.84
eccentricity
0.2229
full name
433 Eros (A898 PA)
h mag
10.4
inclination
10.83
mean motion deg day
0.5597
moid au
0.149
name
Eros
named
yes
orbit class
AMO
perihelion au
1.133
rotation period h
5.27
semi major au
1.458
spec taxonomy
S
spect
S
About Eros
Eros is an epic neo. It has spectral type S and swings within 1.133 AU of the Sun at perihelion.
An Amor-class object. It approaches Earth's orbit from outside without ever crossing it — named for the asteroid Amor, which swept past at 16 million km in 1932.
How to see it
Like any astronomical target, Eros is best seen from a dark site away from city lights, and when it is above the horizon depends on your latitude and the time of year. Because it moves against the background stars, the live position panel on this page tracks where it is right now. The visibility panel above works out tonight's viewing window for your saved location.
Why Eros is an epic neo
Eros scores 51 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the epic tier. Another 27 points would lift it into a rarer tier.
That score comes from 6 science badges — Near-Earth object, Notably bright (low H), Has a proper name, Amor: shadows Earth's orbit from outside, Stony asteroid and Eros, the first asteroid we orbited — each earned for a real, measurable property of the object. Rarity on Spacedle is never random: the more remarkable an object's astrophysics, the more badges it collects, the higher it scores, and the rarer it ranks.
📷 Real photo