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 Obs.
- Discovery date
- 21 October 1911
- Alternative designations
- 1911 NC, 1988 VG 2
- Observation arc
- 104.39 yr (38129 d)
- Aphelion
- 3.0675 AU (458.89 Gm )
- Perihelion
- 1.8441 AU (275.87 Gm)
- Semi major axis
- 2.4558 AU (367.38 Gm)
- Orbital period sidereal
- 3.85 yr (1405.7 d )
- Mean anomaly
- 73.788 °
- Mean motion
- 0° 15 21.96 / day
- Inclination
- 11.707°
- Longitude of ascending node
- 204.27°
- Argument of perihelion
- 205.50°
- Synodic rotation period
- 3.1305 h (0.13044 d )
via Wikipedia infobox
Wikidata facts
- Instance of
- asteroid
- Followed by
- 725 Amanda
- Follows
- 723 Hammonia
- Parent body
- Sun
- Minor-planet group
- asteroid belt
- Diameter
- 9.492
- Orbital period
- 1404.955218418409
Show 17 more facts
- discoverer or inventor
- Johann Palisa
- site of astronomical discovery
- Vienna Observatory
- provisional designation
- A911 UP
- time of discovery or invention
- 1911-10-21
- orbital inclination
- 11.71385186341054
- albedo
- 0.103
- rotation period
- 3.1305
- absolute magnitude
- 13.87
- orbital eccentricity
- 0.250766975400109
- semi-major axis of an orbit
- 2.454950293848552
- periapsis
- 1.839329833902542
- apoapsis
- 3.070570753794562
- longitude of ascending node
- 204.2248846457999
- argument of periapsis
- 205.7009568326287
- mean anomaly
- 224.8726337035551
- time of periapsis
- 2461527.855273415
- epoch
- November 21, 2025
Sources (2)
via Wikidata · CC0
~1 min read
Encyclopedic overview
724 Hapag is a minor planet orbiting the Sun in the asteroid belt that was found by Austrian astronomer Johann Palisa in 1911 and named after the German shipping company Hamburg America Line. It was assigned a provisional name of 1911 NC, then became a lost asteroid until it was rediscovered in 1988 as 1988 VG2 by Tsutomu Hioki and N. Kawasato at Okutama, Japan.
Photometric observations of this asteroid at the Organ Mesa Observatory in Las Cruces, New Mexico in 2011 gave a light curve with a period of 3.1305 ± 0.0001 hours and a brightness variation of 0.11 ± 0.01 in magnitude.
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “724 Hapag” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.