File:000391-asteroid_shape_model_(391)_Ingeborg.png · Wikimedia Commons · See Wikimedia Commons
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
- M. F. Wolf
- Discovery site
- Heidelberg Obs.
- Discovery date
- 1 November 1894
- Pronunciation
- German: [ ˈɪŋəbɔʁk ]
- Named after
- unknown ( Ingeborg )
- Alternative designations
- 1894 BE · 1934 AJ, A894 VB
- Minor planet category
- Mars-crosser
- Observation arc
- 122.86 yr (44,875 days)
- Aphelion
- 3.0285 AU
- Perihelion
- 1.6120 AU
- Semi major axis
- 2.3203 AU
- Orbital period sidereal
- 3.53 yr (1,291 days)
- Mean anomaly
- 292.16 °
- Mean motion
- 0° 16 44.04 / day
- Inclination
- 23.202°
- Longitude of ascending node
- 212.88°
- Argument of perihelion
- 147.06°
- Mars moid
- 0.2350 AU
via Wikipedia infobox
~2 min read
Encyclopedic overview
391 Ingeborg (prov. designation: A894 VB or 1894 BE) is an asteroid and second-largest Mars-crosser on an eccentric orbit from the asteroid belt. It was discovered by German astronomer Max Wolf on 1 November 1894, at the Heidelberg Observatory in southwest Germany. When discovered, it was observed for a couple of weeks, and follow-up observations were made in 1901 and 1904.
Among the many thousands of named minor planets, Ingeborg is one of 120 asteroids, for which no official naming citation has been published. All of these low-numbered asteroids have numbers between 164 Eva and 1514 Ricouxa and were discovered between 1876 and the 1930s, predominantly by astronomers Auguste Charlois, Johann Palisa, Max Wolf and Karl Reinmuth.
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “391 Ingeborg” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.