Eros spirit, breath, life or animating force". Eros In Greek mythology, Eros (, ; , "Desire") is the Greek god of sensual love and desire. His Roman counterpart was Cupid ("desire"). Some myths make him a primordial god, while in other myths, he is the son of Aphrodite. He is one of the winged love gods, Erotes. The Greek ἔρως, meaning "desire," comes from ἔραμαι "to desire, love", of uncertain etymology. R. S. P. Beekes has suggested a Pre-Greek origin. Eros appears in ancient Greek sources under several different guises. In the earliest sources (the cosmogonies, the earliest philosophers, and texts
433 Eros into an Earth-crosser within as short an interval as two million years, and has a roughly 50% chance of doing so over a time scale of 10–10 years. It is a potential Earth impactor, about five times larger than the impactor that created Chicxulub crater and led to the extinction of the dinosaurs. Eros is named after the Greek god of love, Erōs. It is pronounced or sometimes . The rarely used adjectival form of the name is "Erotian" . Eros is also the first masculine name for an asteroid. The NEAR Shoemaker probe visited Eros twice, first with a