Beagle 2 Mars lander’s remains may have been spotted on red planet [View all]

[bananas]

Source: Guardian

Press conference on Friday will provide an update on the fate of the Mars spacecraft that disappeared on Christmas day in 2003

A British Mars lander that was lost on its way to the red planet more than a decade ago may have been spotted by an orbiting spacecraft.

The Beagle 2 lander was supposed to touch down on Christmas day in 2003, but after it was released from its mothership, Mars Express, the dustbin-lid-sized craft was never heard from again.

But Beagle 2’s final resting place may finally have been discovered. Scientists operating the HiRise camera on Nasa’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) will take part in a press conference this Friday to announce “an update” on the ill-fated mission.

The HiRise camera is the only camera in Mars orbit that can image the surface in high enough detail to spot missing spacecraft. The HiRise team has already found the twin Viking landers which touched down on Mars in the 1970s and photographed Nasa’s Phoenix, Curiosity and Opportunity rovers. They have been actively hunting for Beagle 2 for several years.

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Read more: http://www.theguardian.com/science/2015/jan/12/beagle-2-mars-lander-remains-red-planet

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Via http://nasawatch.com/archives/2015/01/did-mro-find-be.html