Carl Gustav Witt discovers 433 Eros, the first near-Earth asteroid to be found.
Eros (minor planet designation: (433) Eros), provisional designation 1898 DQ, is a stony asteroid of the Amor group and the first discovered and second-largest near-Earth object with an elongated shape and a mean diameter of approximately 16.8 kilometers (10.4 miles). Visited by the NEAR Shoemaker space probe in 1998, it became the first asteroid ever studied from orbit around the asteroid.
The asteroid was discovered by German astronomer C.G. Witt at the Berlin Observatory on 13 August 1898 in an eccentric orbit between Mars and Earth. It was later named after Eros, a god from Greek mythology, the son of Aphrodite. He is identified with the planet Venus.
Carl Gustav Witt (October 29, 1866 – January 3, 1946) was a German astronomer and discoverer of two asteroids who worked at the Berlin Urania Observatory, a popular observatory of the Urania astronomical association of Berlin.He wrote a doctoral thesis under the direction of Julius Bauschinger.
Witt discovered two asteroids, most notably 433 Eros, the first asteroid with a male name, and the first known near-Earth object. His first minor planet discovery was the main-belt asteroid 422 Berolina, that bears the Latin name of his adoptive city.The minor planet 2732 Witt – an A-type asteroid from the main-belt, discovered by Max Wolf at Heidelberg Observatory in 1926 – was named in his memory by American astronomer and MPC's longtime director, Brian G. Marsden. Naming citation was published on 22 September 1983 (M.P.C. 8153).