The Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous-Shoemaker spacecraft, launched in February 1996, made its closest approach to the asteroid Mathilde (officially 253 Mathilde) June 27, 1997.
The flyby lasted only about 25 minutes, since NEAR was traveling over 20,000 miles an hour, but it took about 500 pictures of the asteroid.
Mathilde was discovered in November 1885 and is approximately 50 km (30 miles) in diameter
