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
- S. Belyavskyj
- Discovery site
- Simeiz Obs.
- Discovery date
- 1 October 1926
- Named after
- дружба – lit. friendship , (in Russian)
- Alternative designations
- 1926 TM · 1927 AE, 1931 EO · 1946 UH, 1949 QS 1 · 1951 EK 1 , 1951 ER 1 · 1958 GA, 1979 QP 4
- Minor planet category
- main-belt · Flora
- Observation arc
- 90.49 yr (33,052 days)
- Aphelion
- 2.4948 AU
- Perihelion
- 1.9650 AU
- Semi major axis
- 2.2299 AU
- Orbital period sidereal
- 3.33 yr (1,216 days)
- Mean anomaly
- 73.187 °
- Mean motion
- 0° 17 45.6 / day
- Inclination
- 3.1730°
- Longitude of ascending node
- 181.88°
- Argument of perihelion
- 238.14°
- Dimensions
- 9.05 km (derived) , 9.08 ± 0.8 km , 11.70 ± 0.20 km , 12.694 ± 0.296 km
- Synodic rotation period
- 12 h (dated) , 47.9 ± 0.5 h (dated) , 99.100 ± 0.005 h , 99.20 ± 0.03 h
via Wikipedia infobox
Wikidata facts
- Instance of
- asteroid
- Named after
- Khutir-Mykhailivskyi
- Followed by
- Q141583
- Follows
- 1620 Geographos
- Parent body
- Sun
- Minor-planet group
- asteroid belt
- Diameter
- 12.694
- Orbital period
- 1216.619464641014
- Image
- 001621-asteroid shape model (1621) Druzhba.png
Show 18 more facts
- discoverer or inventor
- Sergey Belyavsky
- site of astronomical discovery
- Simeiz Observatory
- provisional designation
- 1979 QP4
- time of discovery or invention
- 1926-10-01
- orbital eccentricity
- 0.1188217986338409
- orbital inclination
- 3.172325498077495
- periapsis
- 1.965326155812926
- apoapsis
- 2.495351951670732
- semi-major axis of an orbit
- 2.23033905374183
- mean anomaly
- 240.7169615839072
- longitude of ascending node
- 181.8147024568746
- argument of periapsis
- 238.444936528116
- absolute magnitude
- 11.8
- albedo
- 0.244
- rotation period
- 99.2
- asteroid spectral type
- S-type asteroid
- time of periapsis
- 2461403.6168509405
- epoch
- November 21, 2025
Sources (2)
via Wikidata · CC0
~3 min read
Encyclopedic overview
1621 Druzhba (provisional designation 1926 TM), is a stony Florian asteroid and relatively slow rotator from the inner regions of the asteroid belt, approximately 10 kilometers in diameter. It was discovered on 1 October 1926, by Russian astronomer Sergey Belyavsky at Simeiz Observatory on the Crimean peninsula. It was named after the Russian word for friendship.
Classification and orbit
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Q141559” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.