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
- A. Kopff
- Discovery site
- Heidelberg Obs.
- Discovery date
- 23 January 1908
- Alternative designations
- 1908 BV; 1927 SC;, 1929 AM; 1936 YJ
- Observation arc
- 107.90 yr (39412 d)
- Aphelion
- 2.9049 AU (434.57 Gm )
- Perihelion
- 2.3187 AU (346.87 Gm)
- Semi major axis
- 2.6118 AU (390.72 Gm)
- Orbital period sidereal
- 4.22 yr (1541.7 d )
- Mean anomaly
- 207.017 °
- Mean motion
- 0° 14 0.636 / day
- Inclination
- 10.228°
- Longitude of ascending node
- 297.595°
- Argument of perihelion
- 245.225°
- Mean radius
- 21.26 ± 0.7 km
- Synodic rotation period
- 15.6652 h (0.65272 d )
- Geometric albedo
- 0.0415 ± 0.003
via Wikipedia infobox
Wikidata facts
- Instance of
- asteroid
- Named after
- Gunnlöð
- Followed by
- Q156256
- Follows
- Q156230
- Parent body
- Sun
- Minor-planet group
- asteroid belt
- Diameter
- 39.401
- Orbital period
- 1542.355610922433
Show 18 more facts
- discoverer or inventor
- August Kopff
- site of astronomical discovery
- Heidelberg-Königstuhl State Observatory
- provisional designation
- A908 BK
- time of discovery or invention
- 1908-01-23
- orbital inclination
- 10.24011802841104
- Commons category
- 657 Gunlöd
- albedo
- 0.044
- rotation period
- 15.6652
- absolute magnitude
- 11.34
- orbital eccentricity
- 0.1127442216730837
- semi-major axis of an orbit
- 2.612506585662816
- periapsis
- 2.317961564046457
- apoapsis
- 2.907051607279176
- longitude of ascending node
- 297.504640671536
- argument of periapsis
- 244.0230141460455
- mean anomaly
- 282.5324203634678
- time of periapsis
- 2461332.395989214
- epoch
- November 21, 2025
Sources (2)
via Wikidata · CC0
~1 min read
Encyclopedic overview
657 Gunlöd is a dark background asteroid orbiting in the intermediate asteroid belt, approximately 43 kilometres (27 mi) in diameter. It was discovered on 23 January 1908, by astronomer August Kopff at the Heidelberg Observatory in southwest Germany. It has an albedo of around 0.042 and a rotation period of 15.7 hours.
References
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “657 Gunlöd” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.