File:52_Europa_VLT_(2021),_deconvolved.pdf · Wikimedia Commons · See Wikimedia Commons
52 Europa is an asteroid located in the main belt between Mars and Jupiter. It is one of many rocky objects that orbit the Sun in this region of our solar system.
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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
~3 min read
Encyclopedic overview
52 Europa is the sixth largest asteroid in the asteroid belt, having a diameter of over 300 km, though it is not correspondingly massive. It is not spherical but is shaped like an ellipsoid of approximately 380×330×250 km. It was discovered on 4 February 1858, by Hermann Goldschmidt from his balcony in Paris. It is named after Europa, one of Zeus's conquests in Greek mythology, a name it shares with Jupiter's moon Europa.
Physical characteristics
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “52 Europa” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.