WE WILL probably never know what destroyed Beagle 2, the British-built lander that disappeared on Mars at the end of last year. That's the conclusion of the Beagle 2 team's own analysis of what may have gone wrong.
Nothing was heard from Beagle 2 after it separated as planned from the European Space Agency's Mars Express craft on 19 December 2003 and headed for the planet's surface. Among the failure scenarios listed in the report, published this week, is that it hit the ground too hard because the atmosphere on Mars may have been thinner than expected. Another suggestion is that the airbags designed to cushion the craft's landing failed to work.
"The biggest surprise was the atmospheric variations," says Mark Sims, the mission manager from the University of Leicester in the UK. The evidence for a thinner than expected atmosphere comes from the NASA rovers Spirit and Opportunity, which ...
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