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
- K. W. Kamper
- Discovery site
- Karl Schwarzschild Obs.
- Discovery date
- 15 August 1963
- Named after
- University of Toronto
- Alternative designations
- 1963 PD · 1955 HW
- Minor planet category
- main-belt · ( outer ) , background
- Observation arc
- 61.93 yr (22,619 days)
- Aphelion
- 3.5735 AU
- Perihelion
- 2.8031 AU
- Semi major axis
- 3.1883 AU
- Orbital period sidereal
- 5.69 yr (2,079 days)
- Mean anomaly
- 359.45 °
- Mean motion
- 0° 10 23.16 / day
- Inclination
- 18.379°
- Longitude of ascending node
- 252.48°
- Argument of perihelion
- 291.78°
- Dimensions
- 26.96 ± 0.60 km , 35.864 ± 0.383 km , 35.874 ± 0.503 km , 37.13 ± 0.58 km , 61.04 km (calculated)
- Synodic rotation period
- 8.9669 ± 0.0002 h , 8.97 ± 0.01 h
via Wikipedia infobox
Wikidata facts
- Diameter
- 35.874
- Orbital period
- 2077.426930974646
Show 14 more facts
- provisional designation
- 1963 PD
- time of discovery or invention
- 1963-08-15
- orbital eccentricity
- 0.1224925557634042
- orbital inclination
- 18.39271126203388
- periapsis
- 2.79599053196137
- apoapsis
- 3.576583399633695
- semi-major axis of an orbit
- 3.186286965797533
- mean anomaly
- 160.9494296019325
- longitude of ascending node
- 252.4261107118272
- argument of periapsis
- 289.9844207904887
- absolute magnitude
- 10.03
- albedo
- 0.104
- rotation period
- 8.97
- time of periapsis
- 2460071.7203344996
Sources (3)
via Wikidata · CC0
~3 min read
Article
2104 Toronto, provisional designation 1963 PD, is a metallic background asteroid from the outer regions of the asteroid belt, approximately 36 kilometers in diameter. It was discovered on 15 August 1963, by Karl Kamper at the David Dunlap Observatory on plates taken by Sidney van den Bergh at the Karl Schwarzschild Observatory in Tautenburg, Germany. The asteroid was named after the University of Toronto. It was the first asteroid discovered at an observatory in Canada.
Orbit and classification