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
- 18 March 1914
- Alternative designations
- 1914 UK
- Observation arc
- 100.50 yr (36708 d)
- Aphelion
- 2.2639 AU (338.67 Gm )
- Perihelion
- 2.0953 AU (313.45 Gm)
- Semi major axis
- 2.1796 AU (326.06 Gm)
- Orbital period sidereal
- 3.22 yr (1175.3 d )
- Mean anomaly
- 310.813 °
- Mean motion
- 0° 18 22.68 / day
- Inclination
- 5.2605°
- Longitude of ascending node
- 80.496°
- Argument of perihelion
- 81.938°
- Earth moid
- 1.10938 AU (165.961 Gm)
- Jupiter moid
- 2.71157 AU (405.645 Gm)
- Mean radius
- 5.94 ± 0.3 km
- Synodic rotation period
- 4.0728 h (0.16970 d )
via Wikipedia infobox
Wikidata facts
- Diameter
- 14.158
- Orbital period
- 1175.532313763232
Show 14 more facts
- provisional designation
- A914 FA
- time of discovery or invention
- 1914-03-18
- orbital inclination
- 5.25968815427004
- albedo
- 0.224
- rotation period
- 4.0728
- absolute magnitude
- 11.34
- orbital eccentricity
- 0.03935044594050421
- semi-major axis of an orbit
- 2.179837384947143
- periapsis
- 2.09405981177169
- apoapsis
- 2.265614958122595
- longitude of ascending node
- 80.41011265051348
- argument of periapsis
- 82.12853315975755
- mean anomaly
- 271.8783259299609
- time of periapsis
- 2461288.249653923
Sources (2)
via Wikidata · CC0
~1 min read
Article
782 Montefiore is a minor planet, specifically an asteroid orbiting in the asteroid belt that was discovered by Austrian astronomer Johann Palisa on 18 March 1914 and named for Clarice Sebag-Montefiore, wife of Alfons von Rothschild of Vienna. It is orbiting 2.18 AU from the Sun with an eccentricity of 0.04 and a period of 3.22 yr. The orbital plane of this asteroid is inclined by an angle of 5.26° to the plane of the ecliptic.
10μ radiometric data collected from Kitt Peak in 1975 gave a diameter estimate of 15 km. Photometric light curve studies from 1997 onward give a consistent rotation period of 4.07 hours.