# Why is the asteroid 433-Eros so funny looking?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-asteroid-433-eros-so-funny-looking/742818
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [January 11, 2016, 4:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-asteroid-433-eros-so-funny-looking/742818 "2016-01-11T16:23:57Z")
**Posts on this page:** 6
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)
#### Post date: [January 11, 2016, 4:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-asteroid-433-eros-so-funny-looking/742818/1 "2016-01-11T16:23:57Z")
See hed. Spinoff from a current thread on eccentric orbits.
> **[433 Eros](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/433_Eros)**
>
> 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. It has an elongated shape and a volume-equivalent 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 ...
The thing looks like a deformed seed pod imitating a potato. Planets are spherical, more or less, because of gravitational agglutination, I’ve been told. So is an asteroid, morphologically, just a bunch of stuff that hasn’t been around long enough?
And what is the limit for non-sphericity (there must be a word for that)?
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### Author:  [@Diceman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diceman)
#### Post date: [January 11, 2016, 5:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-asteroid-433-eros-so-funny-looking/742818/2 "2016-01-11T17:28:07Z")
Most asteroids don’t have enough enough gravity to assume a spherical shape. Ceres and a few other asteroids do have enough mass (and hence gravity) to be spherical, and these days they’re considered minor planets, like Pluto. But most asteroids are just irregular lumps of rock.
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### Author:  [@yellowjacketcoder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yellowjacketcoder)
#### Post date: [January 11, 2016, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-asteroid-433-eros-so-funny-looking/742818/3 "2016-01-11T17:54:36Z")
The term you’re looking for [hydrostatic equilibrium](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrostatic_equilibrium).
In general, bodies larger than 400km in diameter are round, while bodies smaller than that are not, with some exceptions on either side.
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### Author:  [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)
#### Post date: [January 11, 2016, 7:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-asteroid-433-eros-so-funny-looking/742818/4 "2016-01-11T19:18:11Z")
It looks like a lump of rock with no reason to be any particular shape. Which is, after all, exactly what it is.
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### Author:  [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)
#### Post date: [January 11, 2016, 7:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-asteroid-433-eros-so-funny-looking/742818/5 "2016-01-11T19:27:00Z")
I take your point, of course, and the spirit in which it is made.
But since you mention it–since OP has been dealt with, perhaps–the “shape of [a] rock” has countless “reasons.” Ejecta material qualities, environment over time, etc.
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### Author:  [@cmyk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmyk)
#### Post date: [January 11, 2016, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-asteroid-433-eros-so-funny-looking/742818/6 "2016-01-11T19:55:31Z")
It’s simply one of the shapes needed to play Space Tetris.