Q156946
Also known as (757) Portlandia, Portlandia
main-belt asteroid
Picture of the Day · NASA
Jupiter and Venus from Earth
2026-06-07
It was visible around the world. The sunset conjunction of Jupiter (left) and Venus (right) in 2012 was visible almost no matter where you lived on Earth. Anyone on our planet with a clear western horizon at sunset could see them. That year, a creative photographer traveled away from the town lights of Szubin, Poland to photograph a near closest approach of the two planets. The bright planets were then separated by only three degrees and his daughter struck a humorous pose. A faint red sunset still glowed in the background. Jupiter and Venus are together again this week after sunset, passing within a degree of each other about two days from today.
© Marek Nikodem (PPSAE) · via NASA APOD
Key facts
- Discovered by
- Joel Hastings Metcalf
- Discovery site
- Taunton, Massachusetts
- Discovery date
- 30 September 1908
- Alternative designations
- 1908 EJ
- Observation arc
- 99.16 yr (36218 d)
- Aphelion
- 2.6327 AU (393.85 Gm )
~1 min read
Article
757 Portlandia is a main-belt asteroid 32 km in diameter. It was discovered on 30 September 1908 from Taunton, Massachusetts by the amateur American astronomer Joel E. Metcalf. The asteroid was named for the city of Portland, Maine, where Hastings was a church minister at the time. In November 2015, amateur astronomers captured it with images of comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko. Portlandia came to opposition in March 2016 at apparent magnitude 13.2.
This body is orbiting the Sun at a distance of 2.37 AU with a period of 3.66 years and an eccentricity of 0.109. The orbital plane is inclined at an angle of 8.2° to the plane of the ecliptic. 757 Portlandia is classified as an X-type asteroid and is a core member of the proposed Athor asteroid family, named after 161 Athor. This asteroid spans a girth of 32.89±0.24 km and is rotating with a period of 6.58 hours. During 2003, the asteroid was observed occulting a star. The resulting chords were used to determine a diameter estimate of 36.7 km.