4660 Nereus

Although the discoverer is given the opportunity to name the asteroid, Helin donated naming rights to the Planetary Society which organized a naming contest. The winner, Robert M. Cutler, then an employee of NASA contractor The MITRE Corporation, named the asteroid after the ancient Greek proto-god Nereus who had characteristics later attributed to Apollo (prophecy) and Poseidon (a sea god similar to Nereus but with legs rather than a fish tail). ==Physical characteristics==

Nereus has been imaged by radar, revealing a slightly elongated shape which would allow for stable orbits around it. More recent work on the analysis of the radar data gives a much more detailed shape for Nereus as well as a fairly detailed terrain map of the surface. Nereus has a generally ellipsoidal shape with dimensions of . On the ends of its longest axis, one end appears narrower and rounder than the other, larger end, making it more of an egg shape. The larger end also appears to have a flatter region on one side of it. Nereus rotates about an axis roughly perpendicular to its longest axis much like a silver spoon spinning on a table. == Exploration ==

radar in 2002 Nereus was proposed for visitation by both the private Near Earth Asteroid Prospector (NEAP) probe, and the Japanese sample return mission Hayabusa. However, the NEAP probe was not realized, and the Hayabusa's launch was delayed by 10 months and the probe had to be redirected to 25143 Itokawa. 4660 Nereus was considered as a flyby target of the NEAR robotic spacecraft mission. NEAR was eventually launched, but visited 253 Mathilde and 433 Eros. == See also ==