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
- Franz Kaiser
- Discovery site
- Heidelberg
- Discovery date
- 18 October 1911
- Alternative designations
- 1911 MZ
- Observation arc
- 104.47 years (38,159 days)
- Aphelion
- 3.9621 AU (592.72 Gm )
- Perihelion
- 3.1388 AU (469.56 Gm)
- Semi major axis
- 3.5504 AU (531.13 Gm)
- Orbital period sidereal
- 6.69 yr (2,443.6 d)
- Mean anomaly
- 218.961 °
- Mean motion
- 0° 8 50.388 / day
- Inclination
- 8.3229°
- Longitude of ascending node
- 38.411°
- Argument of perihelion
- 352.878°
- Earth moid
- 2.1434 AU (320.65 Gm)
- Jupiter moid
- 1.47765 AU (221.053 Gm)
- Mean radius
- 38.035 ± 1.25 km
- Synodic rotation period
- 7.982 h (0.3326 d )
via Wikipedia infobox
~1 min read
Encyclopedic overview
721 Tabora is a minor planet orbiting the Sun. Tabora was named at a conference in Hamburg, Germany in 1913. The name was chosen because the conference was held aboard the passenger cargo liner Tabora of the Deutsche Ost-Afrika Linie. The asteroid is orbiting at a distance of 3.55 AU from the Sun with a period of 6.69 years and an eccentricity (ovalness) of 0.12. The orbital plane for is inclined at an angle of 8.3° to the plane of the ecliptic It is a member of the Cybele group in the outer belt.
Photometric observations of this asteroid made during 2005 were used to produce a light curve showing a rotation period of 7.982±0.001 h with a brightness variation of 0.28 in magnitude. This is a low albedo D-type asteroid showing the characteristic featureless, reddish spectrum of that taxonomic class. It spans a girth of approximately 76 km.
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Q156738” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.