File:129_Antigone.png · Wikimedia Commons · See Wikimedia Commons
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
Key facts
- Discovered by
- Christian Heinrich Friedrich Peters
- Discovery date
- 5 February 1873
- Pronunciation
- / æ n ˈ t ɪ ɡ ə n iː /
- Named after
- Antigone
- Alternative designations
- A873 CA; 1878 CA;, 1907 BA
- Minor planet category
- Main belt
- Observation arc
- 112.47 yr (41080 d)
- Aphelion
- 3.4773 AU (520.20 Gm )
- Perihelion
- 2.26344 AU (338.606 Gm)
- Semi major axis
- 2.87038 AU (429.403 Gm)
- Orbital period sidereal
- 4.86 yr (1776.3 d )
- Average orbital speed
- 17.39 km/s
- Mean anomaly
- 97.3536 °
- Mean motion
- 0° 12 9.619 / day
- Inclination
- 12.262°
- Longitude of ascending node
- 135.703°
- Argument of perihelion
- 111.076°
- Earth moid
- 1.2837 AU (192.04 Gm)
via Wikipedia infobox
Wikidata facts
- Instance of
- asteroid
- Named after
- Antigone
- Followed by
- 130 Elektra
- Follows
- 128 Nemesis
- Parent body
- Sun
- Minor-planet group
- asteroid belt
- Diameter
- 113.0
- Orbital period
- 1774.376750016204
- Image
- 129Antigone (Lightcurve Inversion).png
Show 20 more facts
- discoverer or inventor
- Christian Heinrich Friedrich Peters
- site of astronomical discovery
- Litchfield Observatory
- provisional designation
- A873 CA
- time of discovery or invention
- 1873-02-05
- asteroid spectral type
- X-type asteroid
- orbital inclination
- 12.26995787142696
- described by source
- Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopedic Dictionary
- albedo
- 0.151
- Commons category
- 129 Antigone
- rotation period
- 4.9572
- absolute magnitude
- 7.02
- orbital eccentricity
- 0.2130720176601861
- semi-major axis of an orbit
- 2.868346460697119
- periapsis
- 2.25718209296793
- apoapsis
- 3.479510828426307
- longitude of ascending node
- 135.6542936248707
- argument of periapsis
- 110.5307377460093
- mean anomaly
- 67.63475717391341
- time of periapsis
- 2460667.140164938
- epoch
- November 21, 2025
Sources (2)
via Wikidata · CC0
~2 min read
Encyclopedic overview
129 Antigone is a large main-belt asteroid. Radar observations indicate that it is composed of almost pure nickel-iron. It and other similar asteroids probably originate from the core of a shattered Vesta-like planetesimal which had a differentiated interior. It was discovered by German-American astronomer C. H. F. Peters on February 5, 1873, and named after Antigone, the Theban princess in Greek mythology.
In 1979 a possible satellite of Antigone was suggested based on lightcurve data. A model constructed from these shows Antigone itself to be quite regularly shaped. In 1990, the asteroid was observed from the Collurania-Teramo Observatory, allowing a composite light curve to be produced that showed a rotation period of 4.9572 ± 0.0001 hours and a brightness variation of 0.34 ± 0.01 in magnitude. The ratio of the lengths of the major to minor axes for this asteroid were found to be 1.45 ±0.02.
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “129 Antigone” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.