File:160Una_(Lightcurve_Inversion).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
- C. H. F. Peters
- Discovery date
- 20 February 1876
- Pronunciation
- / ˈ j uː n ə /
- Minor planet category
- Main belt
- Observation arc
- 118.30 yr (43209 d)
- Aphelion
- 2.90877 AU (435.146 Gm )
- Perihelion
- 2.54727 AU (381.066 Gm)
- Semi major axis
- 2.72802 AU (408.106 Gm)
- Orbital period sidereal
- 4.51 yr (1645.8 d )
- Average orbital speed
- 18.01 km/s
- Mean anomaly
- 144.472 °
- Mean motion
- 0° 13 7.471 / day
- Inclination
- 3.82512°
- Longitude of ascending node
- 8.60989°
- Argument of perihelion
- 52.8418°
- Earth moid
- 1.56031 AU (233.419 Gm)
- Jupiter moid
- 2.30107 AU (344.235 Gm)
- Dimensions
- 81.24 ± 2.1 km
via Wikipedia infobox
Wikidata facts
- Diameter
- 81.24
- Mass
- 560
- Orbital period
- 1645.451373428327
- Image
- 160Una (Lightcurve Inversion).png
Show 15 more facts
- time of discovery or invention
- 1876-02-20
- orbital inclination
- 3.818801379791282
- albedo
- 0.0625
- Commons category
- 160 Una
- provisional designation
- A876 DA
- rotation period
- 11.033
- absolute magnitude
- 9.06
- orbital eccentricity
- 0.06560940869889685
- semi-major axis of an orbit
- 2.727665330736112
- periapsis
- 2.548704821258035
- apoapsis
- 2.906625840214189
- longitude of ascending node
- 8.542238845682743
- argument of periapsis
- 50.12886991188535
- mean anomaly
- 171.185754668404
- time of periapsis
- 2460218.061569082
Sources (2)
via Wikidata · CC0
~1 min read
Article
160 Una is a fairly large and dark, primitive main belt asteroid that was discovered by German-American astronomer C. H. F. Peters on February 20, 1876, in Clinton, New York. It is named after a character in Edmund Spenser's epic poem The Faerie Queene (1590). This minor planet is orbiting the Sun at a distance of 2.73 AU with an eccentricity of 0.07. The orbital plane is inclined at an angle of 3.83° to the plane of the ecliptic.
In the Tholen classification system it is categorized as a CX-type, while the Bus asteroid taxonomy system lists it as an Xk asteroid. Photometric observations of this asteroid made at the Torino Observatory in Italy during 1990–1991 were used to determine a synodic rotation period of 5.61 ± 0.01 hours. It has an estimated diameter of about 81 km.