杏吧原创

WHILE NASA scientists celebrate finding signs of water on Mars (see 鈥淐ase clinched for wet Mars鈥�), British scientists are still puzzling over what became of their Mars lander, Beagle 2. Nothing has been heard from the probe since it separated from its mother ship, Mars Express, on 19 December.

At a meeting in London on Monday, the Beagle 2 team announced that it might have spotted the dead lander on the Martian surface in two images from NASA鈥檚 orbiting Mars Global Surveyor. The images show a few white 鈥渃andidate pixels鈥� near the landing site that might be the remains of the probe鈥檚 parachutes, airbags and shell. But they are far from conclusive. In one of the images, the white dots sit around the rim of a crater and may only be boulders, while a line of four pixels in the second image, dubbed the 鈥渟tring of pearls鈥�, is thought more likely to be the track of a cosmic ray striking the camera.

Whether the team eventually sees the dead lander or not, it has garnered some clues about what may have gone wrong. Observations by Mars Express suggest the atmosphere is much thinner than was predicted, which could have been fatal for the lander because it relied on the atmosphere鈥檚 braking effect to trigger the release of its parachute. Alternatively, a glint on the surface of Beagle 2 in a photo taken as it drifted away from Mars Express suggests some component may have broken off.

The European Space Agency鈥檚 Beagle 2 inquiry is due to report by the end of this month.