A Space & astronomy forum. SpaceBanter.com

Go Back   Home » SpaceBanter.com forum » Space Science » News
Site Map Home Authors List Search Today's Posts Mark Forums Read Web Partners

Where is Beagle 2? The search continues (Forwarded)



 
 
Thread Tools Display Modes
  #1  
Old February 19th 07, 03:58 AM posted to sci.space.news
Andrew Yee[_1_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 1,209
Default Where is Beagle 2? The search continues (Forwarded)

Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council
Swindon, U.K.

Contacts:

Prof Colin Pillinger
The Open University
Tel: +44 1908 655 169

Peter Barratt
PPARC Head of Communications
Tel: +44 1793 442 094

16 February 2007

Where is Beagle 2? The search continues

NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) spacecraft has used its onboard
High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment camera (HiRISE) to take a colour
image of a region of Mars in the vicinity of the intended landing site of
Beagle 2.

Included in the image is new coverage of the crater H2O which was considered
by the Beagle 2 team as unique in the area that had been searched for
evidence of the missing Lander. Beagle 2 was targeted to land in an ellipse
approximately 50km x 10km in size.

The new image does not show any features inside the crater that can be
reconciled with peculiarities (i.e. possible components of the entry descent
and landing system) encountered in the two previous lower resolution images
taken soon after Beagle 2 was due to arrive on Mars in December 2003. The
previous images were captured by the Mars Orbiter Camera on NASA's Mars
Global Surveyor spacecraft.

Commenting on the latest image, Prof Colin Pillinger of the Open University
and lead scientist for Beagle 2, said: "Of course this is disappointing. We
had hoped that the HiRISE camera would clarify the oddities we had seen in
the crater but this is not the case. Nevertheless, I am extremely grateful
to the camera team at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the University of
Arizona for trying and congratulate them on the exceptional quality of the
images. I remain optimistic that future images may yet show us where Beagle
2 finally came to rest."

About PPARC,
http://www.pparc.ac.uk/ap/intro.asp

Notes for Editors

Image and caption:
[http://www.pparc.ac.uk/nw/mro_crater.jpg (163KB)]
H20 crater. Credit: NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter
 




Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

vB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off
Forum Jump

Similar Threads
Thread Thread Starter Forum Replies Last Post
Beagle 2 Search Ended Ricardo UK Astronomy 4 February 13th 04 04:18 PM
Disappointment in Beagle 2 Search (Forwarded) Andrew Yee Astronomy Misc 11 February 2nd 04 08:35 PM
Beagle 2 remains silent (Forwarded) Andrew Yee Astronomy Misc 3 January 13th 04 12:03 PM
Again no signal from Beagle 2 (Forwarded) Andrew Yee Astronomy Misc 0 January 11th 04 03:05 AM
Beagle 2 status report for 12/26/2003 (Forwarded) Andrew Yee Astronomy Misc 14 January 3rd 04 09:18 PM


All times are GMT +1. The time now is 08:37 PM.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.6.4
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.
Copyright ©2004-2024 SpaceBanter.com.
The comments are property of their posters.