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
- E. Hertzsprung
- Discovery site
- Johannesburg Obs. , (Leiden Southern Station)
- Discovery date
- 25 September 1929
- Named after
- Ivar Hertzsprung, (discoverer's brother)
- Alternative designations
- 1929 SH · 1957 NA, 1957 XA
- Minor planet category
- NEO · Amor
- Observation arc
- 87.62 yr (32,002 days)
- Aphelion
- 2.6015 AU
- Perihelion
- 1.1240 AU
- Semi major axis
- 1.8628 AU
- Orbital period sidereal
- 2.54 yr (929 days)
- Mean anomaly
- 229.02 °
- Mean motion
- 0° 23 15.72 / day
- Inclination
- 8.4513°
- Longitude of ascending node
- 133.14°
- Time of perihelion
- 2023-Sep-09
- Argument of perihelion
- 167.76°
- Earth moid
- 0.1117 AU · 43.5 LD
via Wikipedia infobox
~4 min read
Encyclopedic overview
1627 Ivar (provisional designation 1929 SH) is an elongated stony asteroid and near-Earth object of the Amor group, approximately 15×6×6 km. It was discovered on 25 September 1929, by Danish astronomer Ejnar Hertzsprung at Leiden Southern Station, annex to the Johannesburg Observatory in South Africa. It was named after Ivar Hertzsprung, brother of the discoverer. 1627 Ivar was the first asteroid to be imaged by radar, in July 1985 by the Arecibo Observatory.
Classification and orbit
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “1627 Ivar” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.