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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
- Joel Hastings Metcalf
- Discovery site
- Taunton, Massachusetts
- Discovery date
- 26 October 1906
- Alternative designations
- 1906 WE
- Observation arc
- 85.05 yr (31065 d)
- Aphelion
- 2.7650 AU (413.64 Gm )
- Perihelion
- 2.1063 AU (315.10 Gm)
- Semi major axis
- 2.4356 AU (364.36 Gm)
- Orbital period sidereal
- 3.80 yr (1388.4 d )
- Mean anomaly
- 8.1809 °
- Mean motion
- 0° 15 33.444 / day
- Inclination
- 7.7394°
- Longitude of ascending node
- 0.017298°
- Argument of perihelion
- 336.486°
- Synodic rotation period
- 5.49 h , 5.487 h (0.2286 d )
via Wikipedia infobox
Wikidata facts
- Instance of
- asteroid
- Followed by
- 621 Werdandi
- Follows
- 619 Triberga
- Parent body
- Sun
- Minor-planet group
- asteroid belt
- Diameter
- 11.385
- Orbital period
- 1388.137130572336
Show 19 more facts
- discoverer or inventor
- Joel Hastings Metcalf
- provisional designation
- A906 UO
- time of discovery or invention
- 1906-10-26
- orbital inclination
- 7.735993436149471
- site of astronomical discovery
- Taunton
- rotation period
- 5.487
- asteroid spectral type
- E-type asteroid
- Commons category
- 620 Drakonia
- albedo
- 0.419
- absolute magnitude
- 10.98
- orbital eccentricity
- 0.1356091666665764
- semi-major axis of an orbit
- 2.435319592942754
- periapsis
- 2.105067932377001
- apoapsis
- 2.765571253508507
- longitude of ascending node
- 359.8194811061134
- argument of periapsis
- 336.7234973287548
- mean anomaly
- 169.5330255434386
- time of periapsis
- 2460346.7914232914
- epoch
- November 21, 2025
Sources (2)
via Wikidata · CC0
~1 min read
Encyclopedic overview
620 Drakonia is a minor planet, specifically an asteroid orbiting in the asteroid belt. It was discovered October 26, 1906, in Taunton, Massachusetts, by American astronomer Joel Hastings Metcalf and given the preliminary designation 1906 WE. It may have been named for Drake University.
Photometric observations at the Palmer Divide Observatory in Colorado Springs, Colorado, in 2001 were used to build a light curve for this object. The asteroid displayed a rotation period of 5.49 ± 0.01 hours and a brightness variation of 0.56 ± 0.02 in magnitude.
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “620 Drakonia” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.