On August 25, NEAR Shoemaker's camera snapped this picture of a 950-meter (0.6-mile) diameter crater on Eros. The feature retains many hallmarks of a young crater, such as a nearly continuous bowl shape. Yet it also shows wear from the passage of time: a few small craters have formedinside; movement of loose material has scarred the walls; and small impacts and regolith have subdued its once-sharp rim. It's a picture of a crater at middle age, slightly but noticeably altered from its young, pristine form. Photo: JHU-APL

NEAR Shoemaker is taking a wider view of Eros, after an Aug. 26 maneuver sent it climbing toward an orbit 62 miles (100 kilometers) from the asteroid's center.

Controlled from the NEAR Mission Operations Center at the Applied Physics Laboratory, the two-minute engine burn lifted the car-sized spacecraft from the 31-mile (50-kilometer) orbit it occupied through most of August. When NEAR Shoemaker reaches its new vantage on Sept. 5 another maneuver -- the 13th since the spacecraft encountered Eros in February -- will "circularize" its orbit and refine its position.

Now 89 million miles (144 million kilometers) from Earth, NEAR Shoemaker continues to snap detailed images and gather information about the complex and cratered surface of the tumbling, 21-mile-long asteroid. The spacecraft will get its closest look yet at Eros in October, when it flies to within 4 miles (6 kilometers) of the surface. The yearlong orbit ends in February 2001.