File:77Frigga_20180411(TripleChordOccultation).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
- Christian Heinrich Friedrich Peters
- Discovery date
- November 12, 1862
- Pronunciation
- / ˈ f r ɪ ɡ ə /
- Named after
- Frigg
- Minor planet category
- Main belt
- Aphelion
- 452.196 million km (3.023 AU)
- Perihelion
- 346.228 million km (2.314 AU)
- Semi major axis
- 399.212 million km (2.669 AU )
- Orbital period sidereal
- 1592.266 d (4.36 a )
- Average orbital speed
- 18.15 km/s
- Mean anomaly
- 346.682°
- Inclination
- 2.433°
- Longitude of ascending node
- 1.332°
- Argument of perihelion
- 61.419°
- Dimensions
- 60.0 × 74.0 km
- Mean diameter
- 61.390 ± 0.177 km
- Mass
- (4.16 ± 2.30/1) × 10 kg
- Mean density
- 3.434 ± 1.901/0.827 g/cm
via Wikipedia infobox
~2 min read
Encyclopedic overview
77 Frigga is a large, M-type, possibly metallic main-belt asteroid. It was discovered by the German-American astronomer C. H. F. Peters on November 12, 1862. The object is named after Frigg, the Norse goddess. The asteroid is orbiting the Sun with a period of 4.36 years and completes a rotation on its axis every nine hours.
Frigga has been studied by radar. The spectra of this asteroid displays a feature at a wavelength of 3 μm, indicating the presence of hydrated minerals on the surface. The near infrared spectrum is reddish and shows no spectral absorption features. Potential analogs of this spectrum include enstatite chondrites and nickel-iron meteorites.
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “77 Frigga” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.