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
1836 Komarov (1971 OT)
- Orbit class
- Main-belt Asteroid
- Diameter
- 22.240 km
- Albedo
- 0.042
- Rotation period
- 8.802 h
- Absolute magnitude
- 12.130 H
- Earth MOID
- 1.220 AU
via NASA/JPL Small-Body Database
Key facts
- Discovered by
- N. Chernykh
- Discovery site
- Crimean Astrophysical Obs.
- Discovery date
- 26 July 1971
- Named after
- Vladimir Komarov (Soviet cosmonaut)
- Alternative designations
- 1971 OT · 1952 KA 1 , 1952 MT · 1961 JG, 1962 SG
- Minor planet category
- main-belt · ( middle ) , Dora
- Observation arc
- 63.89 yr (23,334 days)
- Aphelion
- 3.3187 AU
- Perihelion
- 2.2523 AU
- Semi major axis
- 2.7855 AU
- Orbital period sidereal
- 4.65 yr (1,698 days)
- Mean anomaly
- 308.73 °
- Mean motion
- 0° 12 43.2 / day
- Inclination
- 7.0195°
- Longitude of ascending node
- 272.76°
- Argument of perihelion
- 12.344°
- Dimensions
- 21.16 km (calculated) , 21.55 ± 6.10 km , 21.84 ± 6.55 km , 22.240 ± 0.304 km , 22.86 ± 0.73 km , 25.40 ± 9.32 km
- Synodic rotation period
- 8.8015 ± 0.0004 h , 9.695 ± 0.005 h
via Wikipedia infobox
~3 min read
Encyclopedic overview
1836 Komarov (prov. designation: 1971 OT) is a carbonaceous Dorian asteroid from the central region of the asteroid belt, approximately 22 kilometers in diameter. It was discovered on 26 July 1971 by Russian astronomer Nikolai Chernykh at Crimean Astrophysical Observatory in Nauchnij on the Crimean peninsula. It was named after Soviet cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov.
Classification and orbit
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “1836 Komarov” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.