67 Asia

Also known as (67) Asia, Asia

main-belt asteroid

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: Norman Robert Pogson
Discovery date: April 17, 1861
Pronunciation: / ˈ eɪ ʃ i ə /
Named after: Asia and Asia
Minor planet category: Main belt
Aphelion: 2.869 AU (429.2 Gm )
Perihelion: 1.973 AU (295.2 Gm )
Semi major axis: 2.421 AU (362.2 Gm )
Orbital period sidereal: 3.7674140999315 yr (1,376.048 d)
Mean anomaly: 182.178°
Inclination: 6.027°
Longitude of ascending node: 202.722°
Time of perihelion: 2023-Dec-10
Argument of perihelion: 106.301°
Proper mean motion: 0.26133 deg / yr
Proper orbital period: 1377.56859 yr , (503156.928 d )
Dimensions: 56.309 ± 0.396 km
Synodic rotation period: 15.89 hours

via Wikipedia infobox

~1 min read

Encyclopedic overview

67 Asia is a large main belt asteroid. It was discovered by English astronomer N. R. Pogson on April 17, 1861, from the Madras Observatory. Pogson chose the name to refer both to Asia, a figure in Greek mythology, and to the continent of Asia, because the asteroid was the first to be discovered from that continent.

a image of a lightcurve image of 67 Asia. This object is orbiting the Sun with a period of 3.77 years, a semimajor axis of 2.421 AU, and an eccentricity of 0.185. It has a 2:1 commensurability with Mars, having an orbital period double that of the planet. The orbital plane lies at an inclination of 6.0° to the plane of the ecliptic. This is a stony S-type asteroid with a cross-sectional size of 56 km, Photometry from the Oakley Observatory during 2006 produced a lightcurve that indicated a sidereal rotation period of 15.90±0.02 with an amplitude of 0.26±0.04 in magnitude.

Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “67 Asia” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.