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
- 4.586
- Orbital period
- 1236.58488772024
Show 14 more facts
- provisional designation
- 1996 BW4
- time of discovery or invention
- 1996-01-16
- orbital eccentricity
- 0.1598221840775598
- absolute magnitude
- 15.67
- orbital inclination
- 3.651232370519312
- periapsis
- 1.894326706736639
- apoapsis
- 2.61502041202021
- semi-major axis of an orbit
- 2.254673559378425
- mean anomaly
- 355.384017431706
- longitude of ascending node
- 72.33913251190259
- argument of periapsis
- 344.5320673513069
- albedo
- 0.07
- rotation period
- 27.1793
- time of periapsis
- 2461016.35570635
Sources (2)
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Article
The following is a partial list of minor planets, running from minor-planet number 9001 through 10000, inclusive. The primary data for this and other partial lists is based on JPL's "Small-Body Orbital Elements" and data available from the Minor Planet Center. Critical list information is also provided by the MPC, unless otherwise specified from Lowell Observatory. A detailed description of the table's columns and additional sources are given on the main page including a complete list of every page in this series, and a statistical break-up on the dynamical classification of minor planets.
Also see the summary list of all named bodies in numerical and alphabetical order, and the corresponding naming citations for the number range of this particular list. New namings may only be added to this list after official publication, as the preannouncement of names is condemned by the Working Group for Small Bodies Nomenclature of the International Astronomical Union.