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.

[9] Witt was taking a two-hour exposure of beta Aquarii to secure astrometric positions of asteroid 185 Eunike.

It was the first minor planet to be given a male name;[3] the break with earlier tradition was made because it was the first near-Earth asteroid discovered.

During the opposition of 1900–1901, a worldwide program was launched to make parallax measurements of Eros to determine the solar parallax (or distance to the Sun), with the results published in 1910 by Arthur Hinks of Cambridge[11] and Charles D. Perrine of the Lick Observatory, University of California.

[16] The value of the Astronomical Unit (roughly the Earth-Sun distance) obtained by this program was considered definitive until 1968, when radar and dynamical parallax methods started producing more precise measurements.

NEAR scientists have found that most of the larger rocks strewn across Eros were ejected from a single crater in an impact approximately 1 billion years ago.

[21] (The crater involved was proposed to be named "Shoemaker", but is not recognized as such by the International Astronomical Union (IAU), and has been formally designated Charlois Regio.)

These are smooth deposits of dust accumulated in depressions on the surface of the body (like craters), contrasting from the rocky terrain around them.

[25] On 31 January 2012, Eros passed Earth at 0.17867 AU (26,729,000 km; 16,608,000 mi),[26][27] about 70 times the distance to the Moon, with a visual magnitude of +8.1.

[1] In the novel and television series The Expanse, a catastrophic science experiment is unleashed on a civilian population living within tunnels cut through Eros.

This so-called "Eros Incident" ends with the asteroid mysteriously breaking its usual orbit and crashing into Venus.

[29] It makes an appearance in the novel (and its film adaptation) Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card, serving as a base for humanity and the location of Command School after having been captured from the invading aliens (the Formics) prior to the initial novel who had used the asteroid as their forward operating base in their previous invasion.