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
Wikidata facts
- Orbital period
- 2922.404222037906
Show 14 more facts
- provisional designation
- 1985 QO
- time of discovery or invention
- 1977-08-19
- orbital eccentricity
- 0.1721412144747732
Article · Русский
(3557) Сокольский (лат. Sokolsky) — типичный астероид главного пояса, который был открыт 19 августа 1977 года советским астрономом Николаем Черных в Крымской астрофизической обсерватории и назван в честь советского и российского астронома . 3557 Sokolsky Discovered 1977-08-19 by Chernykh, N. at Nauchnyj. Named in honor of Andrej Georgievich Sokolskij, director of the Institute of Theoretical Astronomy in St. Petersburg, known for his work on the theory of periodic and quasiperiodic solutions of Hamiltonian systems. As founder and executive director of the International Institute for Problems of the Asteroid Hazard he is much involved in the current international interest in Near-Earth asteroids. REF: DISCOVERY.DB; MPC 20835 — Discovery Circumstances
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