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File:8_Flora_VLT_(2021),_deconvolved.pdf · Wikimedia Commons · See Wikimedia Commons

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8 Flora

Also known as (8) Flora, Flora

main-belt asteroid

AI overview

8 Flora is a large asteroid located in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. It is scientifically important because it is the parent body of a notable family of smaller asteroids created by ancient collisions, and studying it helps astronomers understand the history and composition of the early solar system.

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

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

Diameter: 147.491
Orbital period: 1192.942186357289
Image: 8 Flora VLT (2021), deconvolved.pdf

Show 17 more facts

time of discovery or invention: 1847-10-18
orbital inclination: 5.890326395333704
density: 6.5
rotation period: 12.865
apparent magnitude: 11.02
albedo: 0.226
Commons category: 8 Flora
provisional designation: A847 UA
absolute magnitude: 6.61
orbital eccentricity: 0.1563337133955282
semi-major axis of an orbit: 2.201307162677431
periapsis: 1.857168639611894
apoapsis: 2.545445685742967
longitude of ascending node: 110.8433741767689
argument of periapsis: 285.4267388865241
mean anomaly: 198.9007844696565
time of periapsis: 2461534.339028876

Sources (3)

via Wikidata · CC0

~3 min read

Article

8 Flora is a large, bright main-belt asteroid. It is the innermost large asteroid: no asteroid closer to the Sun has a diameter above 25 kilometers (20% that of Flora), and not until 20-km 149 Medusa was discovered was an asteroid known to orbit at a closer mean distance. It is the seventh-brightest asteroid with a mean opposition magnitude of +8.7. Flora can reach a magnitude of +8.1 at a favorable opposition near perihelion, such as occurred in November 2020 when it was 0.88 AU (132 million km; 340 LD) from Earth.

Discovery and naming