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
- Max Wolf
- Discovery site
- Heidelberg Obs.
- Discovery date
- 25 September 1892
- Named after
- California
- Alternative designations
- 1892 J; 1979 FY2
- Minor planet category
- Main belt
- Observation arc
- 113.45 yr (41,439 d)
- Aphelion
- 2.62698 AU (392.991 Gm )
- Perihelion
- 1.77187 AU (265.068 Gm)
- Semi major axis
- 2.19943 AU (329.030 Gm)
- Orbital period sidereal
- 3.26 yr (1,191.4 d)
- Mean anomaly
- 15.6325 °
- Mean motion
- 0° 18 7.783 / day
- Inclination
- 5.66900°
- Longitude of ascending node
- 29.0469°
- Argument of perihelion
- 293.875°
- Dimensions
- 14.67 ± 0.9 km , 15 km
- Mean density
- ~2.7 g/cm
via Wikipedia infobox
~1 min read
Encyclopedic overview
341 California is an asteroid belonging to the Flora family in the Main Belt. It was discovered by Max Wolf on 25 September 1892 in Heidelberg, and is named for the U.S. state of California. This object is orbiting the Sun at a distance of 2.20 AU with a period of 3.26 yr and an eccentricity (ovalness) of 0.19. The orbital plane is inclined at an angle of 5.7° to the plane of the ecliptic.
The very slow rotation rate of this asteroid favors collecting photometric data for an extended period in order to measure the period. Data collected from June to December 2016 was used to produce a light curve showing a rotation period of 317.88±0.06 h with a brightness variation of 0.9 in magnitude. It is tumbling with a period of 250±2 h. It has an unusually high albedo.
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Q151526” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.