File:Орбита_астероида_228.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. Palisa
- Discovery site
- Vienna Observatory
- Discovery date
- 19 August 1882
- Named after
- daughter of astronomer , Theodor v. Oppolzer
- Alternative designations
- A882 QA
- Minor planet category
- main-belt
- Observation arc
- 130.80 yr
- Aphelion
- 2.73 AU (408 million km )
- Perihelion
- 1.67 AU (250 million km)
- Semi major axis
- 2.20 AU (329 million km)
- Orbital period sidereal
- 3.27 yr (1193.1 d )
- Mean anomaly
- 63.67 °
- Mean motion
- 0° 18 6.408 / day
- Inclination
- 2.5359°
- Longitude of ascending node
- 313.25°
- Argument of perihelion
- 19.177°
- Earth moid
- 0.657 AU (98.3 million km)
- Mars moid
- 0.29 AU (43 million km)
via Wikipedia infobox
Wikidata facts
- Instance of
- asteroid
- Followed by
- Q463917
- Follows
- 227 Philosophia
- Parent body
- Sun
- Minor-planet group
- asteroid belt
- Diameter
- 9.3
- Orbital period
- 1192.87546235847
Show 20 more facts
- discoverer or inventor
- Johann Palisa
- site of astronomical discovery
- Vienna Observatory
- time of discovery or invention
- 1882-08-19
- asteroid spectral type
- S-type asteroid
- orbital inclination
- 2.536361059854184
- described by source
- Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopedic Dictionary
- albedo
- 0.2082
- provisional designation
- A882 QA
- rotation period
- 6.484
- Commons category
- 228 Agathe
- absolute magnitude
- 12.26
- orbital eccentricity
- 0.2421713039526208
- semi-major axis of an orbit
- 2.201225079132249
- periapsis
- 1.668151531425581
- apoapsis
- 2.734298626838916
- longitude of ascending node
- 313.2281539431549
- argument of periapsis
- 19.03929147312753
- mean anomaly
- 305.3373944773321
- time of periapsis
- 2461181.6268912125
- epoch
- November 21, 2025
Sources (2)
via Wikidata · CC0
~1 min read
Encyclopedic overview
228 Agathe is a stony main belt asteroid, about 9 kilometers in diameter. It was discovered by Johann Palisa on 19 August 1882 at Vienna Observatory, Austria. Photometric observations during 2003 showed a rotation period of 6.48 ± 0.01 hours with a brightness variation of 0.27 ± 0.03 in magnitude. An earlier study yielded results that are consistent with these estimates. Agathe is the lowest numbered asteroid to have an Earth-MOID as low as 0.657 AU (98.3 million km). On 23 August 2029 the asteroid will be 0.659 AU (98.6 million km) from Earth.
Agathe was named after the youngest daughter of Austrian astronomer Theodor von Oppolzer (1841–1886), professor of astronomy in Vienna.
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Q148566” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.