It was renamed Near-Shoemaker in 2000 after geologist Gene Shoemaker , who died in a car accident in 1997.

BBC: At a glance: Asteroid touchdown

Then he worked as a shoemaker in a basement and he could only make enough money to pay the rent and feed us once a day.

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That survey was requested by America's Congress nearly a decade ago, and was stimulated in part by the dramatic images of Comet Shoemaker-Levy, whose collision with Jupiter in 1994 generated a great deal of public awareness of the risk of asteroid impacts. (A couple of Hollywood films exploring doomsday scenarios also swayed opinion.) In 2005 Congress ordered the survey that is about to start.

ECONOMIST: The American Association for the Advancement of Science

The "Wellie" boot was created in 1817 when the Duke of Wellington asked his shoemaker to create a boot he could wear in battle and with evening clothes.

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So, though working full-time as a planetary scientist, Mr Shoemaker taught himself astronomy, and in 1973 began a regular scan of the skies.

ECONOMIST: Gene Shoemaker

The gravity on Eros is very weak , but was still strong enough to hold Near-Shoemaker in orbit for a year.

BBC: At a glance: Asteroid touchdown

One answer might be that the two impacts were, in effect, simultaneous that the objects which created Shiva and Chicxulub were the daughters of a comet that had broken up in space and hit the Earth a few hours apart, as the pieces of comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 hit Jupiter in 1994.

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Shoemaker was studying asteroid impact craters in Australia and once said he would like to take a geologist's hammer to Eros.

BBC: At a glance: Asteroid touchdown