Asteroid Eros

Eros, potato-shaped and about 21 miles long, is one of countless bits and pieces of planetary matter that orbit the Sun between Mars and Jupiter, collectively called the Asteroid Belt. One theory is that these are remains from the time when primordial matter around the Sun coalesced into planets, but these bits and pieces failed to do so. Another theory is that these are remains of a planet that did form there, but that it somehow broke up; the inability to explain how or why it broke up has been the reason why this theory has not been embraced by scientists.

So, to learn more about the origin of the asteroids, NASA launched NEAR four years earlier on February 17, 1996 for the purpose of reaching and going into continuous orbit around the asteroid named Eros; this was successfully achieved on St. Valentine's Day, February 14, 2000.

And the first findings. reported at a news conference on Friday February 17th, 2000 corroborated an ancient cosmogony pieced together by Sitchin.

“Eros has an ancient, heavily cratered surface," reported Dr. Andrew Cheng, chief project scientist. "There are also tantalizing hints that it has a layered structure, as if it were made up of layers, like plywood."

"Such stratified features", Dr. Cheng explained, "could occur if the asteroid was melted while it was part of a planet "(quoted by Associated Press Science News, 2/18/00)