File:395_Delia.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
- Auguste Charlois
- Discovery date
- 30 November 1894
- Pronunciation
- / ˈ d iː l i ə /
- Named after
- Artemis Delia
- Alternative designations
- 1894 BK
- Minor planet category
- Main belt
- Observation arc
- 89.57 yr (32,714 d)
- Aphelion
- 3.021 AU (451.9 Gm )
- Perihelion
- 2.550 AU (381.5 Gm)
- Semi major axis
- 2.785 AU (416.6 Gm)
- Orbital period sidereal
- 4.64 yr (1,696.3 d)
- Mean anomaly
- 277.5°
- Mean motion
- 0° 12 43.2 / day
- Inclination
- 3.35°
- Longitude of ascending node
- 259.3°
- Argument of perihelion
- 11.1°
- Dimensions
- 56 ± 3 km , 55 ± 3 km
- Synodic rotation period
- 19.681 h (0.82 d )
via Wikipedia infobox
Wikidata facts
- Instance of
- asteroid
- Named after
- Artemis
- Followed by
- Q152414
- Follows
- 394 Arduina
- Parent body
- Sun
- Minor-planet group
- asteroid belt
- Diameter
- 44.189
- Orbital period
- 1700.523114536088
Show 18 more facts
- discoverer or inventor
- Auguste Charlois
- site of astronomical discovery
- Nice Observatory
- provisional designation
- A924 EM
- time of discovery or invention
- 1894-11-30
- asteroid spectral type
- C-type asteroid
- orbital inclination
- 3.353659283599176
- albedo
- 0.033
- rotation period
- 19.681
- absolute magnitude
- 10.53
- orbital eccentricity
- 0.08336422828260137
- semi-major axis of an orbit
- 2.788192417211433
- periapsis
- 2.555756908047201
- apoapsis
- 3.020627926375665
- longitude of ascending node
- 259.2030186946898
- argument of periapsis
- 13.3685216050792
- mean anomaly
- 211.9298387136754
- time of periapsis
- 2461699.9353662236
- epoch
- November 21, 2025
Sources (2)
via Wikidata · CC0
~1 min read
Encyclopedic overview
395 Delia is a large Main belt asteroid. It was discovered by the French astronomer Auguste Charlois on 30 November 1894 in Nice. "Delia" is an epithet for the ancient Greco-Roman Moon goddess Artemis, for her birthplace at Delos. This asteroid is orbiting the Sun at a distance of 2.79 AU with an orbital eccentricity (ovalness) of 0.085 and a period of 4.64 yr. The orbital plane is tilted at an angle of 3.35° to the plane of the ecliptic.
This is a dark, carbonaceous body with a low albedo of 0.03 and is classified as a C-type asteroid in the Tholen taxonomy. It has an estimated cross-section of 44.2 km/s and is spinning with a rotation period of 19.7 hours.
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Q152390” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.