"Scientifically there's a huge amount we can learn from asteroids," says Alan Fitzsimmons, an astronomer at Queens University ...

In 1896 he discovered an asteroid which he named Berolina in ... as its orbit lay almost entirely inside the orbit of Mars. Eros approaches the earth more closely than any other body except ...

This asteroid is especially favorable for a rendezvous because its orbit frequents a close vicinity ... is being examined today – but astroid Eros marked NASA's first near-Earth asteroid rendezvous.