Long Lost Mars Probe Beagle 2 Finally Found

Jan 16, 2015 09:45 AM EST

The UK-led Beagle-2 Mars lander, which hitched a ride on ESA’s Mars Express mission and was lost on Mars since 2003, has been found in images taken by NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.

(Photo : HIRISE/NASA/Leicester) The UK-led Beagle-2 Mars lander, which hitched a ride on ESA’s Mars Express mission and was lost on Mars since 2003, has been found in images taken by NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.

U.K. Space Agency's Beagle 2 spacecraft vanished without a trace in an attempt to land on Mars on Christmas Day in 2003; but now the craft has apparently been located, and is near the target landing site on the Red Planet.

The British space agency will be able to announce a new update about the Beagle 2 today, but the agency will not release anymore details about this surprising discovery. NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter images captured an object that was similar to the Beagle 2 in terms of shape and location where the craft was in the correct landing spot and was found still intact.

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According to Shane Byrne from the University of Arizona who is working on the HiRise (High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment) camera on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, it is the only camera on Mars that can pinpoint the Beagle 2 where it could have landed on the target site.

For the past seven years, the HiRise team has been searching for the Beagle 2 as they have already found the twin Viking landers that landed on Mars' surface during the 1970s.

On December 19, 2003, the Beagle 2 Mars probe was launched on board the Mars Express orbiter of the European Space Agency. It was developed and designed to look for past and present primitive microbial traces of life on Mars. Unfortunately, the signal confirmation never arrived on Earth.

Scientists never released a clear explanation about the failure landing of Beagle2 and how it disappeared without a trace.

After the event, many speculated that the probe never landed on Mars or that it even burned up upon entry of the Martian atmosphere. Other theories involve parachute and airbag malfunctions that the Beagle 2 was supposed to use during touch down.

According to Colin Pillenger who is the principle investigator of the Beagle 2, he claims that images taken from NASA's Mars Global Surveyor in 2005 revealed fuzzy photos of the space probe near the landing site but it was never confirmed.

Unfortunately, Pillenger passed away in May of last year. He also said that the Beagle 2 suffered a very hard landing on the surface due to a thinner atmosphere.

TagsLong Lost UK Mars Probe Beagle 2 Finally Found, UK, ESA, beagle 2, lost UK probe spacecraft beagle 2 mars found, Mars, mars exploration, NASA