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
- August Kopff
- Discovery site
- Heidelberg
- Discovery date
- 20 August 1908
- Pronunciation
- / ˈ k ɪ p r i ə /
- Alternative designations
- 1908 DQ
- Observation arc
- 110.22 yr (40258 d)
- Aphelion
- 3.2452 AU (485.48 Gm )
- Perihelion
- 2.7840 AU (416.48 Gm)
- Semi major axis
- 3.0146 AU (450.98 Gm)
- Orbital period sidereal
- 5.23 yr (1911.8 d )
- Mean anomaly
- 277.943 °
- Mean motion
- 0° 11 17.88 / day
- Inclination
- 10.794°
- Longitude of ascending node
- 170.761°
- Argument of perihelion
- 114.672°
- Mean radius
- 15.875 ± 0.65 km
- Synodic rotation period
- 14.283 h (0.5951 d )
- Geometric albedo
- 0.1405 ± 0.012
via Wikipedia infobox
~1 min read
Encyclopedic overview
669 Kypria is a minor planet orbiting the Sun that was discovered by German astronomer August Kopff on August 20, 1908. It is named after the lost Greek poem Cypria, which explained the causes of the Trojan War and served as a prequel to the Iliad.
This body is a member of the dynamic Eos family of asteroids that most likely formed as the result of a collisional breakup of a parent body. It is orbiting the Sun with a semimajor axis of 3.01 km and a low eccentricity of 0.076, causing it to vary in distance from 2.78 to 3.25 AU during each orbital period of 5.23 years. The orbital plane is inclined at an angle of 10.79° relative to the plane of the ecliptic.
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “669 Kypria” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.