File:8_Flora_VLT_(2021),_deconvolved.pdf · Wikimedia Commons · See Wikimedia Commons
8 Flora
Also known as (8) Flora, Flora
main-belt asteroid
AI overview
8 Flora is a large asteroid located in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. It is scientifically important because it is the parent body of a notable family of smaller asteroids created by ancient collisions, and studying it helps astronomers understand the history and composition of the early solar system.
AI-generated from the Wikipedia summary — may contain errors.
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
Wikidata facts
- Diameter
- 147.491
- Orbital period
- 1192.942186357289
- Image
- 8 Flora VLT (2021), deconvolved.pdf
Show 17 more facts
- time of discovery or invention
- 1847-10-18
~3 min read
Article
8 Flora is a large, bright main-belt asteroid. It is the innermost large asteroid: no asteroid closer to the Sun has a diameter above 25 kilometers (20% that of Flora), and not until 20-km 149 Medusa was discovered was an asteroid known to orbit at a closer mean distance. It is the seventh-brightest asteroid with a mean opposition magnitude of +8.7. Flora can reach a magnitude of +8.1 at a favorable opposition near perihelion, such as occurred in November 2020 when it was 0.88 AU (132 million km; 340 LD) from Earth.
Discovery and naming