Picture of the Day · NASA
Pathfinder on Mars
2026-07-04
On July 4th, 1997, using its own array of fireworks, a parachute, and a cocoon of airbags, the Mars Pathfinder spacecraft bounced like a giant beach ball at least 15 times before it came to rest on the surface of Mars at 10:07 AM Pacific Daylight Time. After its then novel airbag-assisted landing sequence was completed, Pathfinder transmitted this color mosaic to mission operators on Earth. In the scene from another world, the Mars Sojourner robot rover is visible in the foreground, crouched on top of the unfolded Pathfinder. About the size of a large house cat, the six-wheeled, solar-powered Sojourner became the first successful Martian rover. Surrounding Pathfinder are deflated airbags and the rock-strewn terrain of the Ares Vallis floodplain. In the distance Martian hills appear against a dusty brownish sky. The Pathfinder lander was subsequently renamed the Carl Sagan Memorial Station.
via NASA APOD
Wikidata facts
- Diameter
- 5.037
- Orbital period
- 1185.495401065156
Show 15 more facts
- provisional designation
- 1992 HK5
- time of discovery or invention
- 1973-08-29
Article · Русский
(11438) Зельдович (лат. Zeldovich) — типичный астероид главного пояса, который был открыт 29 августа 1973 года советским астрономом Тамарой Смирновой в Крымской астрофизической обсерватории и в 2001 году назван в честь советского учёного Якова Зельдовича. 11438 Zeldovich Discovered 1973 Aug. 29 by T. M. Smirnova at the Crimean Astrophysical Observatory. Russian theoretical physicist Yakov Borisovich Zeldovich (1914—1987) was the author of classic works on nuclear physics, the physics of combustion and explosion, astrophysics and cosmology. The name was suggested by the Institute of Applied Astronomy. REF: 20010509/MPCPages.arc; MPC 42672 — Discovery Circumstances
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