As a NASA spacecraft speeds closer to an asteroid in preparation for entering orbit, scientists are getting closer looks each day at what this rock named for the Greek god of love looks like.

The images of 433 Eros and other science data the team hopes to collect once the NEAR spacecraft enters orbit around Eros on Monday -- in purposeful concurrence with Valentine's Day -- should help scientists answer questions about the nature and origin of this and other asteroids with orbits that approach Earth.

Already scientists have collected images rivaling those snapped during a previous 1998 effort to cozy up to Eros that didn't quite work as planned.

The animation above includes of images taken by NEAR on February 4, when it was within 4,620 miles (7,700 kilometers) of the asteroid. The images were taken every 15 degrees of rotation for one Eros "day", which lasts 5.27 hours.

Eros's shape has been compared to a boat, shoe, peanut and potato, not to mention a banana with a bite taken out of it.

This sequence of images is the first to show a large, raised-rimmed crater on the concave side of Eros, which sits opposite a major gouge or "saddle" across the asteroid's waist.

On February 6, NEAR's camera took two images of Eros as it closed to within 4,200 miles (6,800 kilometers). This distance is just greater than the distance at which NEAR imaged Eros during a flyby of the asteroid on December 23, 1998 (images on left).

The differences in Eros's appearance has to do with the seasonal variations in solar lighting and the angle at which NEAR approached the asteroid.

In 1998, NEAR approached from the north when the asteroid was experiencing southern hemisphere summer, and thus the north pole was in shadow resulting in a mostly shadowed, crescent asteroid.

This year, Eros is experiencing northern summer. Now the spacecraft is again over northern latitudes, but because of the difference in illumination it views a mostly sunlit, gibbous Eros.

Starting Thursday, NEAR started collecting images better than any shots taken in 1998. Scientists plan to piece together all the images to get a global view of the rock, thought -- like all asteroids -- to be ancient relics of the time when the solar system formed, some 5 billion years ago.

The plan for NEAR is to orbit Eros for one Earth year.