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
- S. J. Bus
- Discovery site
- Siding Spring Obs.
- Discovery date
- 2 March 1981
- Named after
- Alastair Cameron
- Alternative designations
- 1981 EU 17 · 1977 EL 3 , 1979 SQ 7
- Minor planet category
- main-belt
- Observation arc
- 39.87 yr (14,564 days)
- Aphelion
- 3.0324 AU
- Perihelion
- 2.1023 AU
- Semi major axis
- 2.5673 AU
- Orbital period sidereal
- 4.11 yr (1,503 days)
- Mean anomaly
- 36.213 °
- Mean motion
- 0° 14 22.56 / day
- Inclination
- 7.2772°
- Longitude of ascending node
- 172.24°
- Argument of perihelion
- 254.25°
- Dimensions
- 5.121 ± 0.183
- Geometric albedo
- 0.322 ± 0.047
via Wikipedia infobox
Wikidata facts
- Instance of
- asteroid
- Named after
- Alastair G. W. Cameron
- Followed by
- 2981 Chagall
- Follows
- 2979 Murmansk
- Parent body
- Sun
- Minor-planet group
- asteroid belt
- Diameter
- 5.121
- Orbital period
- 1503.118023843429
Show 16 more facts
- discoverer or inventor
- Schelte J. Bus
- site of astronomical discovery
- Siding Spring Observatory
- provisional designation
- 1981 EU17
- time of discovery or invention
- 1981-03-02
- orbital eccentricity
- 0.1814931498180935
- absolute magnitude
- 13.64
- orbital inclination
- 7.277720217216566
- periapsis
- 2.101932452519193
- apoapsis
- 3.03408431277008
- semi-major axis of an orbit
- 2.568008382644636
- mean anomaly
- 33.49720077032946
- longitude of ascending node
- 171.9449502661381
- argument of periapsis
- 255.5531412796897
- albedo
- 0.322
- time of periapsis
- 2460860.638204927
- epoch
- November 21, 2025
Sources (3)
via Wikidata · CC0
~1 min read
Encyclopedic overview
2980 Cameron, provisionally designated 1981 EU17, is a main-belt asteroid discovered by prolific American astronomer Schelte Bus at Siding Spring Observatory, Australia, on March 2, 1981. It orbits the Sun every 4.11 years at a distance of 2.1–3.0 AU.
The asteroid was named after astrophysicist and cosmogonist Alastair G. W. Cameron (1925–2005), who was associate director for theoretical astrophysics at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. He was an early advocate of the concepts of a turbulent accretion disk solar nebula, and of the origin of the Moon by a giant impact on the proto-Earth. He also studied the nucleosynthesis in stars and supernovae, and the cosmic abundances of nuclides.
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “2980 Cameron” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.