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
- V. Albitzkij
- Discovery site
- Simeiz Obs.
- Discovery date
- 6 November 1923
- Named after
- Lydia Il'inichna Albitskaya , (discoverer's wife)
- Alternative designations
- 1923 PG · A907 JF, A914 JA
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Article
1028 Lydina, provisional designation 1923 PG, is a carbonaceous background asteroid and member of the Cybele group from the outermost regions of the asteroid belt, approximately 82 kilometers (50 miles) in diameter. It was discovered at the Simeiz Observatory on the Crimean peninsula on 6 November 1923, by Soviet astronomer Vladimir Albitsky, who named it after his wife, Lydia Il'inichna Albitskaya. The dark C-type asteroid has a rotation period of 11.68 hours.
Orbit and classification