File:74_Galatea.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
- Ernst Wilhelm Tempel
- Discovery date
- August 29, 1862
- Pronunciation
- / ɡ æ l ə ˈ t iː ə /
- Named after
- Galatea
- Minor planet category
- Main belt
- Adjectives
- Galatean
- Aphelion
- 515.376 million km (3.445 AU )
- Perihelion
- 315.937 million km (2.112 AU)
- Semi major axis
- 415.657 million km (2.778 AU)
- Orbital period sidereal
- 1691.658 d (4.63 a )
- Mean anomaly
- 36.838°
- Inclination
- 4.075°
- Longitude of ascending node
- 197.313°
- Argument of perihelion
- 174.519°
- Dimensions
- 120.67 ± 7.15 km
- Mass
- (6.13 ± 5.36) × 10 kg
- Mean density
- 6.66 ± 5.94 g/cm
- Synodic rotation period
- 17.270 h
via Wikipedia infobox
~1 min read
Encyclopedic overview
74 Galatea is a large C-type main-belt asteroid. Its carbonaceous surface is very dark in color with an albedo of just 0.034. Galatea was found by the prolific comet discoverer Ernst Tempel on August 29, 1862, in Marseille, France. It was his third asteroid discovery. It is named after one of the two Galateas in Greek mythology. A stellar occultation by Galatea was observed on September 8, 1987. The name Galatea has also been given to one of Neptune's satellites.
Photometric observations of this asteroid made during 2008 at the Organ Mesa Observatory in Las Cruces, New Mexico gave a light curve with a period of 17.270 ± 0.002 hours and a brightness variation of 0.08 ± 0.01 in magnitude. The curve displays four minima and four maxima. The spectra of the asteroid does not display evidence of aqueous alteration.
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “74 Galatea” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.