6 Hebe

Also known as (6) Hebe, Hebe

main-belt asteroid

AI overview

6 Hebe is an asteroid located in the main belt between Mars and Jupiter. It is notable as one of the larger main-belt asteroids and has been of scientific interest for studying the composition and history of the solar system.

AI-generated from the Wikipedia summary — may contain errors.

In the Vinony graph

Within Vinony's link graph, 6 Hebe is referenced by 31 other articles, and connects out to apsis, asteroid belt and orbital resonance.

It sits within the topics Astronomical objects discovered in 1847, Background asteroids and Discoveries by Karl Ludwig Hencke.

Its subject is documented across 64 Wikipedia language editions.

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

Wikidata facts

Instance of: asteroid
Named after: Hebe
Followed by: 7 Iris
Follows: 5 Astraea
Parent body: Sun
Minor-planet group: asteroid belt
Diameter: 185.18
Mass: 13700000000000000000
Orbital period: 1379.723618286846
Image: 6hebe.png

Show 21 more facts

discoverer or inventor: Karl Ludwig Hencke
provisional designation: A847 NA
time of discovery or invention: 1847-07-01
asteroid spectral type: S-type asteroid
orbital inclination: 14.73615054631194
density: 4.1
rotation period: 7.2745
apparent magnitude: 11.41
argument of periapsis: 239.6962153584116
albedo: 0.2679
site of astronomical discovery: Drezdenko
Commons category: 6 Hebe
absolute magnitude: 5.61
orbital eccentricity: 0.2022300641974527
semi-major axis of an orbit: 2.425469295614665
periapsis: 1.934966484253561
apoapsis: 2.915972106975769
longitude of ascending node: 138.6147295262398
mean anomaly: 352.5636680501406
time of periapsis: 2461029.0002300683
epoch: November 21, 2025

Sources (4)

via Wikidata · CC0

~7 min read

Encyclopedic overview

6 Hebe (/ˈhiːbiː/) is a large main-belt asteroid, containing around 0.5% of the mass of the belt. However, due to its apparently high bulk density (greater than that of the Moon), Hebe does not rank among the top twenty asteroids by volume. This high bulk density suggests an extremely solid body that has not been impacted by collisions, which is not typical of asteroids of its size – they tend to be loosely-bound rubble piles.

In brightness, Hebe is the fifth-brightest object in the asteroid belt after Vesta, Ceres, Iris, and Pallas. It has a mean opposition magnitude of +8.3, about equal to the mean brightness of Saturn's moon Titan, and can reach +7.5 at an opposition near perihelion.

Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “6 Hebe” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.