Eros

433 Eros is a stony asteroid of the Amor group, and the first discovered, and second-largest near-Earth object. It has an elongated shape and a volume-equivalent diameter of approximately 16.8 kilometers (10.4 miles). The asteroid was discovered by German astronomer C. G. Witt at the Berlin Observatory on 13 August 1898 in an eccentric orbit between Mars and Earth. It was later named after Eros, a god from Greek mythology, the son of Aphrodite, the Greek equivalent of the Roman goddess Venus. Eros was explored by the NEAR Shoemaker spacecraft from 1998–2001. It was the first near-Earth asteroid to be visited by a spacecraft. At the end of its mission, NEAR landed on the asteroid's surface, marking the first landing on an asteroid.