Two years after it was last seen shooting towards Mars, the British-built Beagle 2 lander may have been spotted in images taken from a NASA orbiter. They suggest the lander crashed on the wall of a small crater and now lies intact but dead at its centre, with its air bags splayed open around it.
The clam-shaped lander was last seen when it was released from the European Space Agency鈥檚 Mars Express spacecraft on 19 December 2003. But no signals were received after its scheduled landing time and team members were unable to find it in orbital images of its predicted landing site.
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However, about five weeks ago, the team began to reanalyse images of the 140-square-kilometre landing site region taken by NASA鈥檚 Mars Global Surveyor orbiter. Now, they think they have found the lander, in a 19-metre-wide crater that lies on the flank of a larger crater.
On the northern wall of the small crater, they see a dark spot they attribute to the lander鈥檚 first impact. Spreading away from the spot are two streaks of debris, bolstering the case for an impact. Then, there are signs of a 鈥渄isturbed鈥� surface along the side of the crater, where the lander might have bounced, finally coming to rest at the bottom of the crater.
Panels like petals
The team says three symmetrical features visible there may be the lander鈥檚 air bags, with one of the features possibly being the lander itself. Nearby, four nearly circular features might also be the lander, with its solar panels opened like petals.
鈥淚t really does stand out like a sore thumb once you know what you鈥檙e looking at,鈥� says Colin Pillinger, head of the Beagle 2 team.
鈥淲e have an impact point and we have features inside the crater that you should have, and there鈥檚 nothing else like it in the 140 square kilometres of imagery I鈥檝e studied in detail,鈥� says Guy Rennie, an image analyst at the consulting firm Intertek Virtual Analytics in Hertfordshire, UK. 鈥淲e can鈥檛 say with 100% certainty this is Beagle 2, but we are very, very close to that.鈥�
The team acknowledges that other scientists have questioned their conclusion, arguing the features might be merely image artefacts or noise. Recently, scientists using Mars Global Surveyor images had to retract a claim that they had found NASA鈥檚 lost Mars Polar Lander after what they thought was the lander鈥檚 parachute was revealed to be only a sunlit hill.
No trick of the light
Pillinger admits the features are at the limits of the orbiter鈥檚 resolution 鈥� it can resolve objects about 50 centimetres across, but says 鈥渢his is not a trick of the light鈥�. He emphasises the features persist in images taken six weeks apart and says the symmetrical nature of the features argues against their being noise. 鈥淚 don鈥檛 believe in that much of a coincidence,鈥� he told New 杏吧原创.
The apparent impact point offers a clue as to what doomed Beagle 2. The probe was designed to land on a horizontal surface, so if it hit the sloped wall of the crater, it would have been particularly vulnerable to damage, says Rennie. The impact could have ruptured the air bags and damaged the opening mechanism or electronic components, then the battered probe was further damaged as it skidded to a halt.
鈥淚t could be down to a real, cruel twist of fate,鈥� Rennie told New 杏吧原创. 鈥淚f Beagle had landed even one metre further north, it probably wouldn鈥檛 have died. Assuming this is Beagle, it was very, very unlucky.鈥�
Final confirmation will probably come from NASA鈥檚 Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter HiRise camera, with its 20cm resolution when it arrives at the Red planet and gets in position in about November 2006.
