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
Small body data
(1793) Zoya
- Orbit class
- Main-belt
- Semi-major axis
- 2.224 AU
- Eccentricity
- 0.098
- Inclination
- 1.513 °
- Absolute magnitude
- 12.310 H
via Minor Planet Center
Key facts
- Discovered by
- T. Smirnova
- Discovery site
- Crimean Astrophysical Obs.
- Discovery date
- 28 February 1968
- Named after
- Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya , ( Hero of the Soviet Union )
- Alternative designations
- 1968 DW · 1932 MC, 1933 UV · 1946 TC, 1949 QX · 1951 AE, 1953 VP 2 · 1953 VW 1 , 1953 XF · 1969 RP 1
- Minor planet category
- main-belt · Flora
- Observation arc
- 83.44 yr (30,475 days)
- Aphelion
- 2.4405 AU
- Perihelion
- 2.0067 AU
- Semi major axis
- 2.2236 AU
- Orbital period sidereal
- 3.32 yr (1,211 days)
- Mean anomaly
- 321.35 °
- Inclination
- 1.5088°
- Longitude of ascending node
- 225.99°
- Argument of perihelion
- 323.37°
- Dimensions
- 8.348 ± 0.301 km , 9.41 km (calculated)
- Synodic rotation period
- 5.751 87 ± 0.000 01 h , 5.751 872 ± 0.000 005 h , 5.753 ± 0.001 h , 7.0 h
- Geometric albedo
- 0.24 (assumed) , 0.334 ± 0.047
via Wikipedia infobox
Wikidata facts
- Instance of
- asteroid
- Named after
- Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya
- Followed by
- 1794 Finsen
- Follows
- 1792 Reni
- Parent body
- Sun
- Minor-planet group
- asteroid belt
- Diameter
- 8.348
- Orbital period
- 1211.395471463067
- Image
- 001793-asteroid shape model (1793) Zoya.png
Show 18 more facts
- discoverer or inventor
- Tamara Smirnova
- site of astronomical discovery
- Crimean Astrophysical Observatory
- provisional designation
- 1969 RP1
- time of discovery or invention
- 1968-02-28
- orbital eccentricity
- 0.09751393023219196
- orbital inclination
- 1.512746119233028
- periapsis
- 2.007083865486675
- apoapsis
- 2.440816069418821
- semi-major axis of an orbit
- 2.223949967452748
- mean anomaly
- 132.2145718632554
- longitude of ascending node
- 225.8598557668915
- argument of periapsis
- 324.047591104662
- absolute magnitude
- 12.31
- Commons category
- 1793 Zoya
- albedo
- 0.334
- rotation period
- 5.75
- time of periapsis
- 2460555.599628843
- epoch
- November 21, 2025
Sources (2)
via Wikidata · CC0
~3 min read
Encyclopedic overview
1793 Zoya, provisional designation 1968 DW, is a stony Florian asteroid from the inner regions of the asteroid belt, approximately 9 kilometers in diameter. It was discovered on 28 February 1968, by Russian astronomer Tamara Smirnova at the Crimean Astrophysical Observatory in Nauchnyj, on the Crimean peninsula, and named after World War II partisan Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya.
Orbit and classification
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “1793 Zoya” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.