Image by brunoheron on Pixabay · Pixabay License
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
- Karl Wilhelm Reinmuth
- Discovery site
- Heidelberg Obs.
- Discovery date
- 23 March 1942
- Named after
- Anne Frank , (Holocaust victim)
- Alternative designations
- 1942 EM · 1978 EK 6 , 1986 TV 14 · 1991 BO 2
- Minor planet category
- main-belt · Flora
- Observation arc
- 75.02 yr (27,400 days)
- Aphelion
- 2.3527 AU
- Perihelion
- 2.0721 AU
- Semi major axis
- 2.2124 AU
- Orbital period sidereal
- 3.29 yr (1,202 days)
- Mean anomaly
- 23.021 °
- Mean motion
- 0° 17 58.2 / day
- Inclination
- 4.2473°
- Longitude of ascending node
- 120.64°
- Argument of perihelion
- 9.1351°
- Dimensions
- (6.6 x 5.0 x 3.4 km) , 4.34 ± 0.23 km , 4.8 km , 4.94 km (calculated)
- Synodic rotation period
- 15.12 h , 15.156 ± 0.0474 h , 21.33 ± 0.990 h
via Wikipedia infobox
Wikidata facts
- Instance of
- asteroid
- Named after
- Anne Frank
- Followed by
- 5536 Honeycutt
- Follows
- (5534) 1941 UN
- Parent body
- Sun
- Minor-planet group
- asteroid belt
- Diameter
- 4.8
- Orbital period
- 1202.214279336286
- Image
- Annefrank 5535.jpg
Show 20 more facts
- discoverer or inventor
- Karl Wilhelm Reinmuth
- site of astronomical discovery
- Heidelberg-Königstuhl State Observatory
- provisional designation
- 1991 BO2
- time of discovery or invention
- 1942-03-23
- Commons category
- 5535 Annefrank
- Commons gallery
- (5535) Annefrank
- asteroid family
- Augusta family
- orbital eccentricity
- 0.06310937154733326
- albedo
- 0.311
- absolute magnitude
- 13.87
- orbital inclination
- 4.247418212209232
- periapsis
- 2.073056784105206
- apoapsis
- 2.352340847481714
- semi-major axis of an orbit
- 2.21269881579346
- mean anomaly
- 201.1008639995232
- longitude of ascending node
- 120.5507286753304
- argument of periapsis
- 9.439845764104863
- rotation period
- 15.12
- time of periapsis
- 2461531.14113965
- epoch
- November 21, 2025
Sources (2)
via Wikidata · CC0
~4 min read
Encyclopedic overview
Animation of Stardust 's trajectory from 7 February 1999 to 7 April 2011 Stardust · 81P/Wild · Earth · 5535 Annefrank · Tempel 1 5535 Annefrank (/ˌænˈfræŋk/ an-FRANK), provisional designation 1942 EM, is a stony Florian asteroid and suspected contact binary from the inner asteroid belt, approximately 4.5 kilometers in diameter. It was used as a target to practice the flyby technique that the Stardust space probe would later use on the comet Wild 2.
The asteroid was discovered 23 March 1942, by German astronomer Karl Reinmuth at Heidelberg Observatory in southwest Germany. It was named after Anne Frank, a victim of the Holocaust.
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “5535 Annefrank” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.