File:000046-asteroid_shape_model_(46)_Hestia.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
- Norman Robert Pogson
- Discovery date
- August 16, 1857
- Pronunciation
- / ˈ h ɛ s t i ə /
- Named after
- Hestia
- Minor planet category
- main belt
- Aphelion
- 2.961 AU (442.886 million km)
- Perihelion
- 2.091 AU (312.736 million km)
- Semi major axis
- 2.526 AU (377.811 million km)
- Orbital period sidereal
- 4.01 a (1465.958 d)
- Mean anomaly
- 45.401°
- Inclination
- 2.342°
- Longitude of ascending node
- 181.168°
- Argument of perihelion
- 176.882°
- Dimensions
- 124.1 km
- Mass
- 3.5 × 10 kg
- Mean density
- 5.81 ± 0.87 g/cm
- Synodic rotation period
- 21.04 h
- Spectral type
- C
via Wikipedia infobox
Wikidata facts
- Instance of
- asteroid
- Named after
- Hestia
- Followed by
- 47 Aglaja
- Follows
- 45 Eugenia
- Parent body
- Sun
- Minor-planet group
- asteroid belt
- Diameter
- 131.471
- Mass
- 3.5
- Orbital period
- 1466.28175268426
Show 20 more facts
- discoverer or inventor
- N. R. Pogson
- site of astronomical discovery
- Radcliffe Observatory
- provisional designation
- A857 QA
- time of discovery or invention
- 1857-08-16
- asteroid spectral type
- X-type asteroid
- orbital inclination
- 2.351324430131733
- albedo
- 0.046
- described by source
- Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopedic Dictionary
- Commons category
- 46 Hestia
- rotation period
- 21.04
- absolute magnitude
- 8.51
- orbital eccentricity
- 0.1719292926300535
- semi-major axis of an orbit
- 2.525879735805274
- periapsis
- 2.091607019559687
- apoapsis
- 2.960152452050862
- longitude of ascending node
- 181.0594579150406
- argument of periapsis
- 177.0494777255353
- mean anomaly
- 299.7522009307137
- time of periapsis
- 2461245.8895789296
- epoch
- November 21, 2025
Sources (2)
via Wikidata · CC0
~2 min read
Encyclopedic overview
46 Hestia is a large, dark main-belt asteroid. It is also the primary body of the Hestia clump, a group of asteroids with similar orbits.
Hestia was discovered by N. R. Pogson on August 16, 1857, at the Radcliffe Observatory, Oxford. Pogson awarded the honour of naming it to William Henry Smyth, the previous owner of the telescope used for the discovery. Smyth chose to name it after Hestia, Greek goddess of the hearth. This created a problem in Greek, where 4 Vesta also goes by the name Hestia.
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “46 Hestia” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.