File:193Ambrosia_(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
- J. Coggia , 1879
- Discovery date
- 28 February 1879
- Pronunciation
- / æ m ˈ b r oʊ ʒ i ə /
- Alternative designations
- A879 DB; 1915 RB
- Minor planet category
- Main belt
- Observation arc
- 100.12 yr (36569 d)
- Aphelion
- 3.3720 AU (504.44 Gm )
- Perihelion
- 1.8302 AU (273.79 Gm)
- Semi major axis
- 2.6011 AU (389.12 Gm)
- Orbital period sidereal
- 4.20 yr (1532.2 d )
- Mean anomaly
- 331.40 °
- Mean motion
- 0° 14 5.82 / day
- Inclination
- 12.010°
- Longitude of ascending node
- 349.97°
- Argument of perihelion
- 81.365°
- Mean diameter
- 26 km
- Synodic rotation period
- 6.580 hours , 6.581 h (0.2742 d )
via Wikipedia infobox
Wikidata facts
- Instance of
- asteroid
- Named after
- ambrosia
- Followed by
- 194 Prokne
- Follows
- 192 Nausikaa
- Parent body
- Sun
- Minor-planet group
- asteroid belt
- Diameter
- 26.302
- Orbital period
- 1530.022776374723
- Image
- 193Ambrosia (Lightcurve Inversion).png
Show 20 more facts
- discoverer or inventor
- Jérôme Eugène Coggia
- site of astronomical discovery
- Marseille Observatory
- provisional designation
- A879 DB
- time of discovery or invention
- 1879-02-28
- orbital inclination
- 11.99658761609514
- albedo
- 0.343
- described by source
- Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopedic Dictionary
- Commons category
- 193 Ambrosia
- rotation period
- 6.581
- asteroid spectral type
- S-type asteroid
- absolute magnitude
- 9.79
- orbital eccentricity
- 0.2984223238829443
- semi-major axis of an orbit
- 2.598561378251917
- periapsis
- 1.823092653001513
- apoapsis
- 3.37403010350232
- longitude of ascending node
- 349.4661563392746
- argument of periapsis
- 82.52559450784003
- mean anomaly
- 49.60888877191373
- time of periapsis
- 2460789.659084079
- epoch
- November 21, 2025
Sources (2)
via Wikidata · CC0
~2 min read
Encyclopedic overview
193 Ambrosia (Symbol:) is a main belt asteroid that was discovered by the Corsican-born French astronomer J. Coggia on February 28, 1879, and named after either Ambrosia, the food of the gods in Greek mythology, or Ambrosia, one of the Hyades. Lutz D. Schmadel argued that the second possibility was more likely, based on the fact that Coggia named another asteroid, 217 Eudora, after another of the Hyades.
In 2009, photometric observations of this asteroid were made at the Palmer Divide Observatory in Colorado Springs, Colorado. The resulting light curve shows a synodic rotation period of 6.580 ± 0.001 hours with a brightness variation of 0.11 ± 0.02 in magnitude. This result is consistent with an independent study performed in 1996.
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “193 Ambrosia” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.