File:000767-asteroid_shape_model_(767)_Bondia.png · Wikimedia Commons · See Wikimedia Commons
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
- J. H. Metcalf
- Discovery site
- Winchester Obs.
- Discovery date
- 23 September 1913
- Named after
- William Cranch Bond (1789–1859), George Phillips Bond (1825–1865), (American astronomers)
- Alternative designations
- A913 SD · 1929 OA, 1933 FO 1 · 1938 DQ 2 , 1957 UR · 1958 XA 1 , 1959 AD · A902 SA, 1913 SX
- Minor planet category
- main-belt · ( outer ) , Themis
- Observation arc
- 117.59 yr (42,949 d)
- Aphelion
- 3.6909 AU
- Perihelion
- 2.5531 AU
- Semi major axis
- 3.1220 AU
- Orbital period sidereal
- 5.52 yr (2,015 d)
- Mean anomaly
- 137.11 °
- Mean motion
- 0° 10 43.32 / day
- Inclination
- 2.4118°
- Longitude of ascending node
- 79.324°
- Argument of perihelion
- 269.09°
- Mean diameter
- 43.039 ± 0.396 km 46.91 ± 0.66 km
- Synodic rotation period
- 8.3402 ± 0.0007 h
via Wikipedia infobox
~4 min read
Encyclopedic overview
767 Bondia (prov. designation: A913 SD or 1913 SX) is a Themis asteroid from the outer regions of the asteroid belt, approximately 43 kilometers (27 miles) in diameter. It was discovered on 23 September 1913, by American astronomer Joel Hastings Metcalf at his observatory (799) in Winchester, Massachusetts. The B-type asteroid has a rotation period of 8.3 hours. It was named after William Cranch Bond (1789–1859) and his son George Phillips Bond (1825–1865), both American astronomers and directors of the Harvard College Observatory in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Orbit and classification
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “767 Bondia” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.