Eros, in astronomy: see asteroid.

Eros, in Greek religion and mythology, god of love. He was the personification of love in all its manifestations, including physical passion at its strongest, tender, romantic love, and playful, sportive love. According to some legends he was one of the oldest of the gods, born from Chaos and personifying creative power and harmony. In most legends he was the son of Aphrodite and Ares and was represented as a winged youth armed with bow and arrows. In Greek poetry Eros was often a willful and unsympathetic god, carelessly dispensing the frenzies and agonies of love. At Thespiae and at Athens he was worshiped as a god of fertility. In Hellenistic and Roman myth, he was represented as a naked, winged child, the son and companion of Venus. To the Romans he was Cupid, or Amor. Eros was sometimes attended by his brother, Anteros, who was said to be the avenger of unrequited love or the opposer of love. See also Psyche.

First asteroid found to travel mainly inside the orbit of Mars and the first to be landed on by a spacecraft. Discovered in 1898 and named for the Greek god of love, Eros is an elongated body about 20.5 mi (33 km) in its greatest dimension. It can approach to within 14 million mi (22 million km) of Earth. In 2000 the Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous (NEAR Shoemaker) spacecraft orbited Eros, collecting a full year of data, and in 2001 it set down gently on Eros's surface.

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