Image by Nennieinszweidrei on Pixabay · Pixabay License
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
Small body data
2023 Asaph (1952 SA)
- Orbit class
- Main-belt Asteroid
- Diameter
- 19.678 km
- Albedo
- 0.096
- Rotation period
- 89.200 h
- Absolute magnitude
- 11.830 H
- Earth MOID
- 1.070 AU
via NASA/JPL Small-Body Database
Key facts
- Discovered by
- Indiana University , ( Indiana Asteroid Program )
- Discovery site
- Goethe Link Obs.
- Discovery date
- 16 September 1952
- Named after
- Asaph Hall , (American astronomer)
- Alternative designations
- 1952 SA
- Minor planet category
- main-belt · ( outer )
- Observation arc
- 64.53 yr (23,571 days)
- Aphelion
- 3.6816 AU
- Perihelion
- 2.0703 AU
- Semi major axis
- 2.8760 AU
- Orbital period sidereal
- 4.88 yr (1,781 days)
- Mean anomaly
- 98.697 °
- Mean motion
- 0° 12 7.56 / day
- Inclination
- 22.352°
- Longitude of ascending node
- 3.1290°
- Argument of perihelion
- 357.53°
- Dimensions
- 19.678 ± 0.264 km , 20.56 ± 0.43 km , 21.29 ± 0.40 km , 25.44 km (calculated)
- Synodic rotation period
- 3.87 ± 0.02 h , 4.74 ± 0.01 h , 9.19 ± 0.05 h
via Wikipedia infobox
Wikidata facts
- Instance of
- asteroid
- Named after
- Asaph Hall
- Followed by
- Q546265
- Follows
- Q784240
- Parent body
- Sun
- Minor-planet group
- asteroid belt
- Diameter
- 19.678
- Orbital period
- 1784.745469055026
Show 18 more facts
- discoverer or inventor
- Indiana Asteroid Program
- site of astronomical discovery
- Goethe Link Observatory
- provisional designation
- 1952 SA
- time of discovery or invention
- 1952-09-16
- orbital eccentricity
- 0.2781987302429778
- mean anomaly
- 344.3149878117205
- longitude of ascending node
- 3.028385636887088
- argument of periapsis
- 357.5196688721271
- absolute magnitude
- 11.84
- orbital inclination
- 22.33506332722233
- periapsis
- 2.078433893164521
- apoapsis
- 3.680585882082418
- semi-major axis of an orbit
- 2.879509887623469
- Commons category
- 2023 Asaph
- albedo
- 0.096
- rotation period
- 89.2
- time of periapsis
- 2461078.2604289865
- epoch
- November 21, 2025
Sources (3)
via Wikidata · CC0
~2 min read
Encyclopedic overview
2023 Asaph, provisional designation 1952 SA, is a dark asteroid from the outer regions of the asteroid belt, approximately 21 kilometers in diameter. It was discovered on 16 September 1952, by astronomers of the Indiana Asteroid Program at Goethe Link Observatory in Indiana, United States.
Orbit and classification
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “2023 Asaph” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.