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
- S. Belyavskyj
- Discovery site
- Simeiz Obs.
- Discovery date
- 11 October 1925
- Named after
- Ljuba Berlin , (Soviet parachutist)
- Alternative designations
- 1925 TD · 1943 EH 1 , 1976 MM · A904 TB, A914 SD · A917 GB, A924 ND
- Minor planet category
- main-belt · ( outer ) , background
- Observation arc
- 91.55 yr (33,437 d)
- Aphelion
- 3.2145 AU
- Perihelion
- 2.7948 AU
- Semi major axis
- 3.0046 AU
- Orbital period sidereal
- 5.21 yr (1,902 d)
- Mean anomaly
- 218.82 °
- Mean motion
- 0° 11 21.12 / day
- Inclination
- 5.5963°
- Longitude of ascending node
- 341.40°
- Argument of perihelion
- 101.41°
- Mean diameter
- 44 ± 4 km , 51.017 ± 0.887 km , 55.10 ± 2.0 km , 55.75 ± 0.96 km , 57.16 ± 13.41 km , 58.031 ± 1.315 km , 60.80 ± 14.17 km
- Synodic rotation period
- 33.8 ± 0.2 h , 36 h (poor) , 41.5 ± 0.2 h , 42 h (poor)
via Wikipedia infobox
Wikidata facts
- Instance of
- asteroid
- Followed by
- Q132896
- Follows
- Q132890
- Parent body
- Sun
- Minor-planet group
- asteroid belt
- Diameter
- 58.031
- Orbital period
- 1905.429256025727
Show 17 more facts
- discoverer or inventor
- Sergey Belyavsky
- site of astronomical discovery
- Simeiz Observatory
- provisional designation
- A924 ND
- time of discovery or invention
- 1925-10-11
- orbital eccentricity
- 0.07243978038442475
- orbital inclination
- 5.596712103765213
- periapsis
- 2.790005436660997
- apoapsis
- 3.225788207049396
- semi-major axis of an orbit
- 3.007896821855196
- mean anomaly
- 30.56889219209895
- longitude of ascending node
- 341.2331790735767
- argument of periapsis
- 99.41017852399429
- absolute magnitude
- 9.84
- albedo
- 0.06
- rotation period
- 33.8
- time of periapsis
- 2460838.70316248
- epoch
- November 21, 2025
Sources (2)
via Wikidata · CC0
~3 min read
Encyclopedic overview
1062 Ljuba, provisional designation 1925 TD, is a carbonaceous background asteroid from the outer regions of the asteroid belt, approximately 58 kilometers (36 miles) in diameter. The asteroid was discovered on 11 October 1925, by Soviet–Russian astronomer Sergey Belyavsky at the Simeiz Observatory on the Crimean peninsula. It was named after female paratrooper Ljuba Berlin, who died at an early age. The C-type asteroid has a longer-than average rotation period of 33.8 hours.
Orbit and classification
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Q132892” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.