Number 471 (Story #3), February 17, 2000 by Phillip F. Schewe and Ben Stein FIRST SPACECRAFT IN ORBIT AROUND AN ASTEROID. The Near Earth Asteroid Rendevous (NEAR) spacecraft has arrived at, and gone into orbit around, asteroid Eros, which was at a distance of 160 million miles from Earth when the rendevous occurred. The asteroid, whose gravity is about one thousandth that of Earth, might represent a chunk of matter not much altered from the time the solar system was formed 4 billion years ago, and so it is of great interest to planetary scientists. (NASA press conference, 17 Feb; http://near.jhuapl.edu/iod//pnu/2000/0215/index.html)