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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
Key facts
- Discovered by
- August Kopff
- Discovery site
- Heidelberg
- Discovery date
- 22 August 1906
- Pronunciation
- / m æ l ə ˈ b ɑːr /
- Named after
- Mount Malabar , West Java
- Alternative designations
- 1906 UT
- Observation arc
- 114.41 yr (41,787 d)
- Aphelion
- 3.1294 AU (468.15 Gm )
- Perihelion
- 2.8436 AU (425.40 Gm)
- Semi major axis
- 2.9865 AU (446.77 Gm)
- Orbital period sidereal
- 5.16 yr (1,885.1 d)
- Mean anomaly
- 326.44 °
- Mean motion
- 0° 11 27.492 / day
- Inclination
- 24.565°
- Longitude of ascending node
- 180.049°
- Argument of perihelion
- 302.528°
- Earth moid
- 1.89316 AU (283.213 Gm)
- Jupiter moid
- 1.90731 AU (285.330 Gm)
via Wikipedia infobox
Wikidata facts
- Diameter
- 94.522
- Orbital period
- 1884.870048941314
Show 15 more facts
- provisional designation
- A906 QH
- time of discovery or invention
- 1906-08-22
- orbital inclination
- 24.54803271889981
- Commons category
- 754 Malabar
- albedo
- 0.042
- rotation period
- 11.732
- absolute magnitude
- 9.3
- orbital eccentricity
- 0.05169900875185605
- semi-major axis of an orbit
- 2.986221315060511
- periapsis
- 2.831836633158218
- apoapsis
- 3.140605996962803
- longitude of ascending node
- 179.8935492361758
- argument of periapsis
- 303.1705017778241
- mean anomaly
- 254.8500400951343
- time of periapsis
- 2461551.0389168668
Sources (2)
via Wikidata · CC0
~1 min read
Article
754 Malabar is a minor planet orbiting the Sun. It was discovered in 1906 by German astronomer August Kopff from Heidelberg, and was named in honor of a Dutch-German solar eclipse expedition to Christmas Island in 1922. Malabar is the name of a city and mountain in Indonesia. This object is orbiting at a distance of 2.99 AU from the Sun with a period of 5.16 years and an eccentricity (ovalness) of 0.048. Its orbital plane is inclined at an angle of 24.6° to the plane of the ecliptic.
Photometric measurements of this asteroid made in 2003 resulted in a light curve showing a rotation period of 11.740±0.005 h and a brightness variation of 0.45±0.03 in magnitude. This is a Ch-class asteroid in the Bus asteroid taxonomy, showing a broad absorption band in its carbonaceous spectrum near a wavelength of 0.7 μm. This feature is interpreted as due to iron-bearing phyllosilicates on the surface. 754 Malabar spans a girth of 102.8 km. Between 2002 and 2022, 754 Malabar has been observed to occult sixteen stars.