Eros May Be Leftover From Early Solar System-Study...05/31/00  

WASHINGTON, (Reuters) - The asteroid Eros may be a primordial relic left over from when the solar system first formed, scientists said on Tuesday.

They said NASA's Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous (NEAR) mission had collected new information that suggested Eros is  made out of the same stuff as chondrites, which are primitive meteorites found on Earth and believed to be left over from when planets started forming from dust billions of years ago.

The NEAR team gathered the information after a powerful solar flare zapped Eros with X-rays on May 4. The half-hour explosion prompted a response from elements on the surface of the 21 mile (34 km) long asteroid.

These X-rays were measured by NEAR, the scientists told a meeting of the American Geophysical Union.

"Analysis of X-rays from an area roughly 3.7 miles (6 km)  across on Eros indicates it has an elemental composition similar  to the most primitive rocks in the solar system, the chondritic  meteorites," Jacob Trombka of NASA's Goddard Space Flight  Centre said in a statement.

"Chondrites are the building blocks of terrestrial (earthlike) planets," Tim McCoy of the Smithsonian  Institution's National Museum of Natural History, who also  worked on the experiment, added.

"If more data confirm Eros is primordial, Eros will be a  link between the chondrite meteorites found on Earth and the  history of the solar system's formation."

Images are available at http:/near.jhuapl.edu.

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