(Photo Credit: University of Leicester/ Beagle 2/NASA/JPL/University of Arizona)
We've finally found where the Beagle has (crash-) landed.
Beagle 2 was a British Mars lander that launched along with the European Space Agency's Mars Express mission. On Christmas Day 2003 it made its descent to Mars, but communication with the spacecraft was near-immediately lost. The lander hadn't been seen since.
Now, NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has spotted the long-lost craft. Looking down from orbit, MRO saw Beagle 2 sitting near the Isidis Planitia formation on Mars, its intended landing spot.
It's no easy task to spot a tiny robot from space. It seems MRO caught a break by spotting not only Beagle 2 but also its parachute and rear cover, which made the landing spot easier to find. Images show that the craft failed to deploy all of its solar panels on its crash landing.
Finding the resting place of the Beagle 2 (named for the HMS Beagle that carried Charles Darwin) puts an end to a decade-old mystery. Had it been successful in its landing, the craft would have drilled under the surface of Mars in search of organics and evidence of the ancient atmosphere of Mars, something today's Mars missions like Curiosity and MAVEN and still looking into.
