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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
- N. Chernykh
- Discovery site
- Crimean Astrophysical Obs.
- Discovery date
- 19 August 1977
- Pronunciation
- / æ n ˈ t iː n ər /
- Named after
- Antenor (Greek mythology)
- Alternative designations
- 1977 QH 1 · 1959 EM, 1971 BE 1 · 1978 UU
- Minor planet category
- Jupiter trojan , Trojan · background
- Adjectives
- Antenorian
- Observation arc
- 59.20 yr (21,622 d)
- Aphelion
- 5.2316 AU
- Perihelion
- 5.0584 AU
- Semi major axis
- 5.1450 AU
- Orbital period sidereal
- 11.67 yr (4,263 d)
- Mean anomaly
- 73.993 °
- Mean motion
- 0° 5 4.2 / day
- Inclination
- 6.8058°
- Longitude of ascending node
- 159.14°
- Argument of perihelion
- 304.18°
via Wikipedia infobox
~5 min read
Encyclopedic overview
2207 Antenor /ænˈtiːnər/ is a large Jupiter trojan from the Trojan camp, approximately 92 kilometers (57 miles) in diameter. It was discovered on 19 August 1977, by Russian astronomer Nikolai Chernykh at the Crimean Astrophysical Observatory in Nauchnyj on the Crimean peninsula. The dark D-type asteroid is one of the 30 largest Jupiter trojans and has a rotation period of 7.97 hours. It was named for the Trojan hero and sage Antenor, from Greek mythology. In October 2018, it was reported that Antenor is likely a binary system. If confirmed, it would be 5th known binary Jupiter trojan.
Orbit and classification
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “2207 Antenor” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.