On Christmas day , 2003 , the British spacecraft Beagle 2 was presuppose to make touchdown on the Earth’s surface of Mars to begin its mission of searching forsigns of extraterrestrial life . Scientists thirstily look communication from the probe to corroborate its landing place , but disappointedly , no wireless contact was ever made . Beagle 2 was presumed ruin .
Now , twelve years on , the unlucky adventurer has in conclusion been spotted , and it look like it did n’t experience a crash landing after all . New images , taken from orbit by NASA ’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter , show the doomed investigation ’s landing place spot , and itappears to be intact . What ’s more , the image hint at what run wrong on that fateful Christmas solar day .
University of Leicester / NASA / JPL .
Beagle 2 , which wasnamed afterCharles Darwin ’s famous ship , piggybacked to Mars with ESA ’s Mars Express orbiter , which is still in mathematical operation today . The investigation separated from its mothership on December 19 , and the orbiter even took a pic of Beagle 2 on its way down . But what happened next continue a enigma .
The cunning was imagine to make a soft landing using parachute and airbags , but some trust that it may have been grab out by thethinner than anticipatedMartian atmosphere , causing it to set about too fast and thus hit the Earth’s surface too hard . However , the image hint that Beagle 2 is in one piece , so it believably did n’t experience a crash landing place . What seems to be the case is that it give way to correctly spread out its petal - like solar panels , signify it could n’t talk to scientists back on Earth .
“ Without full deployment , there is no manner we could have communicated with it as the radio relative frequency antenna was under the solar panels , ” Beagle missionary post manager Professor Mark Sims toldBBC News . What caused this loser is sodding guess , says Sims , although it could have been a wakeless bounce or a punctured airbag .
The failure of this mission was blamed on a number of things , include poor direction , short testing , and its shoestring budget of £ 50 million ( $ 76 million ) . Now , it seems that it was just a case ofbad luck . Unfortunately , Beagle ’s primary investigator , Colin Pillinger , will never have a go at it just how stuffy his team was to achieve success , as he died last year .
[ ViaBBC NewsandThe Independent ]
