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
- N. Chernykh
- Discovery site
- Crimean Astrophysical Obs.
- Discovery date
- 11 September 1977
- Named after
- Arkady and Boris Strugatsky , (Russian sci-fi authors)
- Alternative designations
- 1977 RE 7 · 1928 UC, 1959 JQ · 1960 OE, 1961 VG
- Minor planet category
- main-belt · ( outer ) , Themis
- Observation arc
- 89.36 yr (32,640 d)
- Aphelion
- 3.7446 AU
- Perihelion
- 2.4399 AU
- Semi major axis
- 3.0923 AU
- Orbital period sidereal
- 5.44 yr (1,986 d)
- Mean anomaly
- 176.03 °
- Mean motion
- 0° 10 52.68 / day
- Inclination
- 2.0802°
- Longitude of ascending node
- 146.26°
- Argument of perihelion
- 187.49°
- Mean diameter
- 26.921 ± 0.205 km
- Geometric albedo
- 0.056 ± 0.009
via Wikipedia infobox
Wikidata facts
- Diameter
- 26.921
- Orbital period
- 1991.441900146583
Show 13 more facts
- provisional designation
- 1977 RE7
- time of discovery or invention
- 1977-09-11
- orbital eccentricity
- 0.2084940219429315
- absolute magnitude
- 11.9
- orbital inclination
- 2.081641360827704
- periapsis
- 2.451886383199916
- apoapsis
- 3.74361043217128
- semi-major axis of an orbit
- 3.097748407685598
- mean anomaly
- 323.4020900547163
- longitude of ascending node
- 146.1762348722883
- argument of periapsis
- 186.9809484661124
- albedo
- 0.056
- time of periapsis
- 2461202.951698119
Sources (2)
via Wikidata · CC0
~3 min read
Article
3054 Strugatskia, provisional designation 1977 RE7, is a dark Themistian asteroid from the outer regions of the asteroid belt, approximately 27 kilometers (17 miles) in diameter. It was discovered on 11 September 1977, by Soviet–Russian astronomer Nikolai Chernykh at the Crimean Astrophysical Observatory in Nauchnij, on the Crimean peninsula. The asteroid was named after the brothers Arkady and Boris Strugatsky, two Russian science fiction authors.
Orbit and classification