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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. F. Helin
- Discovery site
- Palomar Obs.
- Discovery date
- 7 January 1976
- Pronunciation
- / ˈ ɑː t ən /
- Named after
- Aten ( Egyptian mythology )
- Alternative designations
- 1976 AA
- Minor planet category
- Aten · NEO
- Observation arc
- 59.14 yr (21,601 days)
- Earliest precovery date
- 17 December 1955
- Aphelion
- 1.1434 AU
- Perihelion
- 0.7901 AU
- Semi major axis
- 0.9668 AU
- Orbital period sidereal
- 0.95 yr (347 days)
- Mean anomaly
- 172.27 °
- Mean motion
- 1° 2 12.48 / day
- Inclination
- 18.934°
- Longitude of ascending node
- 108.60°
- Argument of perihelion
- 148.04°
via Wikipedia infobox
Wikidata facts
- Instance of
- near-Earth object
- Named after
- Aten
- Followed by
- 2063 Bacchus
- Follows
- 2061 Anza
- Parent body
- Sun
- Minor-planet group
- asteroid belt
- Diameter
- 1.1
- Orbital period
- 347.3043255795864
- Image
- Aten Sept 11 2013.png
Show 19 more facts
- discoverer or inventor
- Eleanor F. Helin
- site of astronomical discovery
- Palomar Observatory
- provisional designation
- 1976 AA
- time of discovery or invention
- 1976-01-07
- orbital inclination
- 18.93554263304309
- orbital eccentricity
- 0.1828994504408308
- albedo
- 0.26
- periapsis
- 0.7901023367823417
- apoapsis
- 1.143814700009781
- semi-major axis of an orbit
- 0.9669585183960612
- mean anomaly
- 32.63774887898994
- longitude of ascending node
- 108.5282016491241
- argument of periapsis
- 148.0763297313055
- absolute magnitude
- 17.11
- Commons category
- 2062 Aten
- rotation period
- 42.15
- asteroid spectral type
- S-type asteroid
- time of periapsis
- 2460969.0132462145
- epoch
- November 21, 2025
Sources (2)
via Wikidata · CC0
~3 min read
Encyclopedic overview
2062 Aten /ˈɑːtən/, provisional designation 1976 AA, is a stony sub-kilometer asteroid and namesake of the Aten asteroids, a subgroup of near-Earth objects. The asteroid was named after Aten from Egyptian mythology.
It was discovered on 7 January 1976, at the Palomar Observatory by American astronomer Eleanor Helin, who was the principal scientist for the NEAT project until her retirement in 2002. The S-type asteroid measures approximately 900 meters in diameter, has a longer-than average rotation period of 44.77 hours, and approaches the orbit Earth to 44.1 lunar distances.
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “2062 Aten” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.