Beagle 2 Probe Spotted on Mars

evilduckie writes "According to this BBC article photos taken by the Mars Global Surveyor show the European Beagle 2 probe which was lost after it apparently crash-landed on Mars."

Comments

Why??

[TooCynical]

"The Beagle 2 lead scientist has been painstakingly studying images of the landing site in search of his spacecraft ever since it was lost on Christmas Day two years ago. "

Why? Is he going to run up and get it once he locates it?

Clearly he has spent too much time collaborating with the fine folks at NASA that kind of professional time-wasting may only be learned from an american.

R

Re:Why??

[Pieroxy]

The thing is, when you look at the picture in the article (I know, you need to RTFA), you wonder how they deduced from this that it was the crashing site...

Anyway, what are they to do about it? Send a shovel and a cross to bury it?

--
Is eBay loosing it?

Re:Why??

[NeoThermic]

>>Why? Is he going to run up and get it once he locates it?

Of course not, that would be stupid to say.

The whole point of looking at failure is to work out *why* it happend, and *how* you can prevent it. The probe was lost as it entered the atmosphere, and never managed to send out its signal to earth. Looking at images of how it failed will give clues to any future missions.

You also must remember that a high percentage of probes sent to Mars fail. There's obviously a need to work out how these things fail and work out ways to prevent it from happning again.

NeoThermic

Re:Why??

[AnonymousJackass]

The whole point of looking at failure is to work out *why* it happend, and *how* you can prevent it.

In general I fully agree with you but in this instance I think you're a little off the mark. There's no way the Beagle 2 team will be able to determine exactly what went wrong just by analyzing images. All an image -- however high the resolution -- is going to do is confirm that yes, it did crash or yes, it landed properly but failed to communicate. To determine the why and how of their failure would require a mission to investigate the crash site.

Re:Why??

[Anonymous Coward]

>>Why? Is he going to run up and get it once he locates it?
>Of course not, that would be stupid to say.
>
>The whole point of looking at failure is to work out *why* it happend, and *how* you can prevent it.

I'm pretty sure *that* would be stupid to say, too...

Re:Why??

[NeoThermic]

Of course. Images are (excuse the pun) only part of the full picture. Combined with sensor readings (that they should have up to a point), and other various information factors, they should be able to work out what happend with a decent degree of accuracy.

The images will generally show how it crashed, from which you can work out how it came to crash like that, which is generally the information you want.

NeoThermic

Re:Why??

[david.given]

All an image -- however high the resolution -- is going to do is confirm that yes, it did crash or yes, it landed properly but failed to communicate.

That's actually a surprisingly large amount of information. Assuming this image is actually the probe, it allows us to rule out all the various catastrophic failure modes, which in turn tells us that the landing system actually worked. Had the probe failed to make it through reentry, or had the parachute or airbags not deployed, then we wouldn't be seeing this --- the probe would be scattered in lots of little pieces across the Martian surface.

In turn this allows us to validate this entire means of landing. Actually reaching the ground in one piece is possibly the hardest aspect of any extraterrestrial robotic mission, and if a low-budget approach like Beagle's actually works, then that's great news. In this case, we can tell that even though a few things went wrong and we lost the vehicle, this entire approach to getting down does, basically, work.

Re:Why??

[fremsley471]

The lander's weakest point was the descent system. 3 months before the delivery date they discovered that the parachutes were too small and had to chop more vital kilos off the science mission. They were already aiming for one of the lowest parts of Mars, i.e. longest path and highest atmospheric density. Before Beagle landed, a colleague reported that in a lecture the previous summer, Prof. Pillinger said that the parachute's size wasn't critical as it 'collects air' which helps slow the lander down...

Prof. Pillinger is, understandably, clutching at straws. The science (and academic PR) aspects of Beagle were first class. The engineering (i.e. the expensive bit), was totally underfunded and was eventually overwhelmed. If he can prove that the concept was fine and dandy, but something small went wrong, then he can (with much greater authority) go and ask for money for a new one. However, it's unlikely after ESA's board of inquiry, that Prof. Pillinger will ever be involved at such a senior level again. http://www.esa.int/esaCP/SEMLKAHHZTD_index_0.html

Re:Why??

[whathappenedtomonday]

Actually reaching the ground in one piece is possibly the hardest aspect of any extraterrestrial robotic mission

Actually, it ain't that hard if you keep practicing

Re:Why??

[0123456]

"Before Beagle landed, a colleague reported that in a lecture the previous summer, Prof. Pillinger said that the parachute's size wasn't critical as it 'collects air' which helps slow the lander down..."

But in a sense that's true: provided it's big enough to slow the lander to the correct terminal velocity before the landing, the size doesn't matter... make it ten times bigger and you'll just be floating down for longer under the parachute.

On the other hand, if it's 10% too small, you're probably screwed.

Re:Why??

[east coast]

Why? Is he going to run up and get it once he locates it?

Because when an experiment has undesired results it's often best to find out what seems to have gone wrong before you try the same experiment again... Nothing like throwing millions of Euros away on another probe in the hopes that it was "just some glitch that might not happen again".

Clearly he has spent too much time collaborating with the fine folks at NASA that kind of professional time-wasting may only be learned from an american.

Clearly you spend too much time bashing Americans to take the time to think why understanding how one experiment fails may help another be a success.

Re:Why??

[mysticgoat]

If the crash site could be found, it would be reasonable to plan a future mission to explore it. We would have the same opportunities to learn about Mars as the Beagle2 did, but we would also have an opportunity to learn some useful things about our own technology. We might not learn why the crash happened (yet then again we might), but we would certainly learn something important about how our materials weather in the martian environment.

Since there is so much potential value in doing a post mortem, it makes a lot of sense to me to devote some time now to locating the crash site, using the best equipment we've got in the area.

For similar reasons, I think our next visit to the Moon should include a detailed inspection of one of the lunar rovers that the USA has left up there. How better to learn how to build equipment for that environment than to study the degradation of equipment that was abandoned there 35 years ago?

Pro'ly should take another photo of that boot print, too. Hey, somebody is taking notes here, right? And somebody will arrange to translate these ideas into Chinese?

wait!

[zxnos]

i think i see waldo in that high quality image...

Re:wait!

[Microsift]

Actually, it's Sam Waterston and O.J. Simpson...James Brolin must be on the crapper.....Watch out Sam...He's got a knife!

Re:wait!

[JohnnyLocust]

It is pretty amazing considering we can't even find Jimmy Hoffa on our OWN planet.

Poor Snoopy

[Ironballs]

I can see that news in a Charles Shultz comic strip

Uhhh

[lucabrasi999]

He thinks the craft may have hit the ground too hard

In other news, this evening, the Sun will set over the Western Horizon.

Re:Uhhh

[NeoThermic]

The quote there is a bit short on words.

Basically the probe was designed to impact on the surface, after being slowed by the parachutes. The underside of the probe was capable and designed to impact hard. However, what appears to have happend is that the impact was side on, hitting where the probe wasn't designed to be hit, and doing fatial damage.

NeoThermic

Re:Uhhh

[aug24]

Possibly only fatal to the antenna too.

The suggestion is that Beagle is sitting in a martian crater wondering 'where did all the humans go?'!

J.

Re:Uhhh

[AKAImBatman]

However, what appears to have happend is that the impact was side on, hitting where the probe wasn't designed to be hit, and doing fatial damage.

Not fatal damage, just tranceiver damage. They currently believe that the Beagle was operational, but that its radio instruments were damaged, thus preventing it from calling home.

Re:Uhhh

[angusr]

"He thinks the craft may have hit the ground too hard"

In other news, this evening, the Sun will set over the Western Horizon.

Bear in mind that impact damage was just one of many possible failure modes for Beagle 2. Transmitter failure, failure of the antenna to deploy, failure of the solar panels to produce enough power, failure of the onboard computers, and so on - there are lots and lots of reasons why it failed to transmit back to Earth. Up until now there's been an assumption catastrophic impact damage occurred, but if the interpretation of this picture is accurate then Beagle 2 appears to have made it down in basically one piece and may have actually been working long enough to unfold and deploy - so the impact was not catastrophic, but may have been far enough out of the designed envelope to damage the transmitter or the antenna.

Re:Uhhh

[Anonymous Coward]

Duh. That's only true in the Northern hemisphere.

Re:Uhhh

[Anonymous Coward]

Operational? I do not think it means what you think it means.

Re:Uhhh

[lakin]

Well, if Beagle is wondering where we went, instead of wasting money on another explorer why dont we just wait for it to launch "Earth Express 1" into orbit to scan for us?

Re:Uhhh

[Andy Gardner]

Wasn't the probe mounted inside three large inflated airbags? It was supposed to use a 'hit, bounce and roll' landing technique so surley it should have been capable of withstanding a controlled impact on any point of the airbag.

I think it's more likely either the parachutes failed, leading to higher landing speeds than the airbags could cushion, or the air bags themselves failed to inflact

Re:Uhhh

[Zaiff Urgulbunger]

I've absolutely no evidence to back this up, but from memory (normally pretty flakey!), I think the Beagle air bags were meant to collapse on impact; so no bouncing.

As opposed to the Mars Rovers where they were designed to bounce a bit.

Re:Uhhh

[Crayon Kid]

Bear in mind that impact damage was just one of many possible failure modes for Beagle 2.

Multiple failure points? Somehow that doesn't sound very good, not when we're talking pieces of equipment meant to be thrown out in space away from any kind of servicing. Aren't these things supposed to be both sturdy and have redundant failure protections?

Re:Uhhh

[2old2rockNroll]

That's only true in the Northern hemisphere.

You mean the southern hemisphere rotates in the other direction? Man, stepping across the equator must be a killer.

Re:Uhhh

[operagost]

I think they accidentally used stone instead of kilograms in their calculations. Or maybe pints instead of liters-- I forget.

Re:Uhhh

[DigiShaman]

Well damn, I wonder if it's still opperational. If it is, maybe we can use one of our rovers (now that they've far exceeded their use) to relay the signal back home. That is, assuming we can get a rover close enough to pick up a signal to rebound back to us.

Re:Uhhh

[Kijori]

Basically the probe was designed to impact on the surface, after being slowed by the parachutes. The underside of the probe was capable and designed to impact hard. However, what appears to have happend is that the impact was side on, hitting where the probe wasn't designed to be hit, and doing fatial damage.

...and now the probe is too shy to show its now deformed features.

Re:Uhhh

[Anonymous Coward]

Government Coverup: Earth has tilted on it's axis more than they want us to know about. Proof: Sun sets over the Western Horizon alright, but in the _wrong_place_
Anyone else had suspicions about that? On the other hand, the Sun comes up in the _wrong_place also!
They know, but won't tell us! It's the reason for all the Hurricanes and Deadly Snowstorms.

Re:Uhhh

[windral]

Man, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure that... oh wait...

Re:Uhhh

[angusr]

Multiple failure points? Somehow that doesn't sound very good, not when we're talking pieces of equipment meant to be thrown out in space away from any kind of servicing. Aren't these things supposed to be both sturdy and have redundant failure protections?

Almost every planetary lander has massive weight restrictions, and that leads to lack of redundancy. You can't duplicate every system because that leads to over twice as much weight (the extra weight for the duplicate, and the extra weight for the systems to sense failure and handle changeover); it also means a lot more complexity and for space probes that isn't a good thing. Complexity means more to go wrong; airbag landing cushioning is becoming popular because it's simply and there is very little to go wrong compared to traditional rocket-slowed soft-landing.

Most landers are pretty much on the limit weight wise as it is; put redundancy in for everything and you'd be able to have half the science being done, and for probes science is king. They're not carrying humans, so there's less need for everything to go completely right. Hence multiple possible failure points. It's not unique to Beagle 2; almost every lander that has succeeded has been pretty lucky, and for every lander that has succeeded there's been a failure.

How would it search?

[Mattygfunk1]

The robotic laboratory was designed to search Mars for signs of past or present life.

Anyone know how it was to go about this? I assume that it may analyse soil samples, but what else from there?

__
Funny Adult Video Clips - updated 3 times daily.

Re:How would it search?

[Bazzalisk]

Well - if the probe falls into a Canal then we'll know that it found previous life ...

Re:How would it search?

[Billosaur]

"The robotic laboratory was designed to search Mars for signs of past or present life."

Anyone know how it was to go about this? I assume that it may analyse soil samples, but what else from there?

Drop business cards as it went: "If you are a living Martian, or you know where evidence of past Martians may be found, please call 1-800-BEAGLE2."

Re:How would it search?

[shawn(at)fsu]

And if it floats in that canal does that mean that probe is a witch?

Sorry I couldn't stop myself from typing this

Re:How would it search?

[Freexe]

If i remember correctly it had a novel "mole" that could move along the surface and bury into the ground in an area a few meters away from probe.

In addition, Beagle 2 was equipped with a small "mole" (Planetary Undersurface Tool, or PLUTO), to be deployed by the arm. PLUTO had a compressed spring mechanism designed to enable it to move across the surface at a rate of about 1 cm every 5 seconds and to burrow into the ground and collect a subsurface sample in a cavity in its tip. The mole was attached to the lander by a power cable which could be used as a winch to bring the sample back to the lander.

Considering for how cheaply this project was done for (about $120M), the fact it may have landed and survived (for the most) is very supprising.

Re:How would it search?

[srmq]

I think it uses Mono technology. This martians are really good hackers, last time I checked it was still at version 0.1.3 on Earth, and they already have version 2! Next time should think about offshoring to Mars!

Holy crap

[Viper Daimao]

I've seen less pixelated images of tits on network tv.

Re:Holy crap

[TheRealMindChild]

Cartoon Network TV?

Re:Holy crap

[$RANDOMLUSER]

Yeah, but at least in that case, you know they're tits. Here, they think maybe kinda sorta perhaps it's the crash site.

Re:Holy crap

[Viper Daimao]

I guess they missed the landing strip.

Re:Holy crap

[Anonymous Coward]

Here, they think maybe kinda sorta perhaps it's the crash site.

Damn! I thought it was tits!

Re:Holy crap

[shotfeel]

Don't know about that. Looks more like a Paris Hilton nipple than a crash site to me.

After all, aren't we more interested in searching for Paris, than life on Mars?

Re:Holy crap

[ClippyHater]

Of course it's pixelated!

That way, you don't see the cinderblocks under it and the missing tires.

The Beagle didn't find life, life found the Beagle!

Re:Holy crap

[gfreeman]

I've seen less pixelated images of tits on network tv.

So call in Gil Grissom and get his team to "zoom in right there". In 10 seconds you'll be able to see the scratches on the side of the probe.

Beagle Crashes on Mars...

[CWRUisTakingMyMoney]

Snoopy? Snoopy? NOOOOO!

Re:Beagle Crashes on Mars...

[HD Webdev]

Snoopy? Snoopy? NOOOOO!

It can't be Snoopy. He's been spotted since birth.

Re:Beagle Crashes on Mars...

[Anonymous Coward]

*groan*

Re:Beagle Crashes on Mars...

[Anonymous Coward]

Beagle has *definetely* landed!

Ill get me coat...

Location is not very good

[ReformedExCon]

If it were closer to Cydonia, maybe we could pick up movement as the little guys take the spacecraft away and hide it in top secret Martian military bunkers.

I hope they don't have an equivalent Will Smith fighter pilot capable of flying our space ships over there. It'll make our invasion that much harder.

Re:Location is not very good

[SnarfQuest]

Nah, they will just use their Mac's to program the probe to upload a virus into our computers, causing them all to fail at a critical time.

Can I be the first to congradulate our martian overseers?

Re:Location is not very good

[sconeu]

Apparently the Martians found out that Beagle 2 was actually carrying Slim Whitman albums (or was it Hank Williams?).

Re:Location is not very good

[shotfeel]

Slim Whitman.

My best friend in college had a roomate who listened to Slim Whitman. He could sympathize with the martians.

Re:Location is not very good

[operagost]

They don't have Macs, but I hear they do have a drunk crop-duster with a hero complex.

Beagle 3

[fantomas]

Because they are thinking of building another one. Nice to find out what went wrong with the last one, avoid the same mistakes, eh?

I have seen...

[Byzanthy]

images with a much better resolution showing a big face in the martian soil...
Just wishfull thinking i guess.

Re:I have seen...

[iamlucky13]

Four roughly circular features to the right of the 'airbags' could conceivably be Beagle's unfolded solar panels.

Looking at the image, these four "roughly circular" features appear to be one pixel each. Heck, I'm not even sure I'm seeing that much. This doesn't sound like news to me until they get a shot with at higher resolution, if that's possible. I remember seeing pictures of one of the Mars rovers (in this case they were certain because they knew where it landed). You could see a little blob of about 10 pixels that was labeled as the lander. A squiggly line going from that point to a big crater was the tracks, and a blob of 3 or 4 pixels was the rover. There were a few more tiny blobs representing the parachute and backshield.

My mech has one of these!

[mister_llah]

Ooo! If it is a Beagle Active Probe, we will be able to see 4 hexes, regardless of terrain! It is the ultimate close quarters detection tool, really.

actually

[Alien54]

he wants to get some ID on the two martian teanagers who have it up on cider blocks, and who have been scavaging it for parts for their own geek project.

let's face it. This is something that you would do, if a bit of alien technology came crashing down out of the skies.

Incredible

[PeteQC]

Wow, we can't find Bin Laden on Earth, but we can find Beagle 2 on Mars.

This is a funny world we live in...

Re:Incredible

[DigiShaman]

Ya, well...at least Bin Laden can move. The Beagle is just stuck in one spot. :(

Re:Incredible

[BushCheney08]

The solution is obvious. We need to start looking for Bin Laden on Mars!

Re:Incredible

[CreatureComfort]

Your, alias, your post, and your sig... way too funny when taken together. Thanks for the belly laugh.

Re:Incredible

[Somegeek]

Clearly we need to send Professor Pillinger to Afganistan. I bet NASA will buy him a ticket there...

Re:Incredible

[BushCheney08]

Interesting. Apparently I got modded "overrated" 3 times in the span of 1 minute. What are the chances of that?

Re:Incredible

[Anonymous Coward]

Al Qaeda is trying to silence the truth? The terrorists have now truly won.

Re:Incredible

[SunPin]

That's because bin Laden doesn't exist and the Beagle 2 does.

Re:Incredible

[argStyopa]

Why wasn't this modded "troll"?

I mean, here we have an interesting, non-duped, scientific post, and someone has to make such a massively stupid comparison, I guess to try to make a political point?

Tell you what, drop OBL from extra-atmospheric height so he bounces around and lands spread-eagle in the desert, and we'd probably find him.

Then again, he's probably hiding in Canada, where he can blend in with the local population better.

Re:Incredible

[darkmeridian]

We know where Beagle 2 was last reliably seen and Beagle 2 is running away from us.

Re:Incredible

[Anonymous Coward]

Uhhh... what?

Re:Incredible

[MrNougat]

That's because Beagle 2 has been sitting in the same, albeit faraway, place for two years, is not underneath anything, and is the only non-rock in the vicinity.

Oh, also, the US government hasn't come up with a way to fear-monger based on a Mars probe gone missing. Apparently, they've been trying for two years with no success.

Re:Incredible

[SnarfQuest]

But the Beagle isn't dressing up like women and hiding in caves.

Re:Incredible

[Anonymous Coward]

1) What in the world does this have to do with Bin Laden? Whatever the US media might try to tell you, not everything revolves around him, you know... or perhaps you're a bit obsessed? If someone gives you an orange, do you go "OMG, an orange, how can they still be cultivating oranges when they haven't found Bin Laden yet!"

2) Finding a crashed and immobile lander on a deserted planet, given that it's the only metal object in a large desert of rocks, versus finding one person who doesn't want to be found, and who is always moving, among millions of people, vegetation, houses, caves, etc.

3) What's wrong with the mods who modded you up?

Incredible indeed.

Re:Incredible

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, lets invade the venusians before they get the Bomb.

Re:Incredible

[n54]

Afaik the chances of that happening are 100% when you have a rickety moderation system where one can "reuse" or hoard mod points and combine it with some Slashdotters being overly touchy in any direction (left, right, wacko, loon, or anti-laugh).

At least that's what I think when it happens to me :)

p.s. I might be wrong about the "reuse" & hoard stuff - I just think/hope it's the most likely explanation.

Re:Incredible

[LifesABeach]

Ok, I'll bite; "How does that splat mark represent the 'Landing Site' of Beagle-2?"

A couple of notes on my drinking buddy who still owes me money:

1. Bin Laden must be hidding in Libraries, because that's were the Department of Homeland In-Security is looking.

2. Anytime someone from the military says they know more, and better about a situtation than you; It's time to be afraid, of military advice.

Re:Incredible

[BushCheney08]

The times I've had mod points I was only allowed to mod each comment once. Unless other people are allowed to multi-mod comments, the only other explanation I can think of is that the editors are doing it... *shrug*

Re:Incredible

[Bertie]

I dunno. I think he raises an interesting point - even with pretty limited surveillance technology, this guy's been able to find what he was looking for, because he wanted to find it badly enough.

Which is probably not something you could say of the US's attitude to old Osama bin Goldstein.

Re:Incredible

[Fujisawa Sensei]

But the people in charge were actually interested in finding Beagle 2.

Beagle 2 was part of the Mars Express mission

[YA_Python_dev]

The Beagle 2 lander was part of the very successful European Space Agency (ESA) Mars Express mission.

Mars Express contains 7 different scientific instruments and, amongs other things, it has already:

• discovered aurorae on Mars;

• transmitted back gigabytes of beautiful images with a resolution of up to 2 meters/pixel;

• discovered a huge subsurface water ice lake, with a thickness of 1.8 km and an extension of hundreds of kms;

• collaborated with NASA, receiving data from the Mars rovers and transmitting it back to Earth (yes: they use the same communication protocol!).

Re:Beagle 2 was part of the Mars Express mission

[RalphSleigh]

It also meant they could use NASA's Mars Global Surveyor to help look for Beagle right after it crashed. Wont be long now before we get the mars area wifi up...

The other way around

[Izmir Stinger]

I wonder how much different life would be today if the HMS Beagle had shipwrecked in the Galapagos and <i>Origin of the Species</i> had never been published.

Re:The other way around

[aapold]

Not much. Alfred Russel Wallace independently developed the theory of evolution, such that Darwin had to rush his publication to establish precdedence. We'd have the Wallace awards, and little silver wallace fish with feet on cars, but otherwise much the same. His later conversion to Spiritualism would have given some ammo to anti-evolution arguments I suppose. ... in all seriousness he probably lacked the fame and reknown Darwin had prior to publication, and his theory would not have been taken as seriously coming form him as it did from Darwin.

Re:The other way around

[WormholeFiend]

Obviously, the secret world government would have hired someone else to write it.

Re:The other way around

[Sockatume]

I'm going to pitch that to Fox. "It's like Lost, but with Darwin instead of John Locke".

Re:The other way around

[Brunan-G]

It would be alot like Kansas.

Re:The other way around

[meringuoid]

I wonder how much different life would be today if the HMS Beagle had shipwrecked in the Galapagos and Origin of the Species had never been published.

KANSAS MODE: ON

Pretty much the same. Satan would have found someone else to publish his deceits. However, Darwin himself would probably have been rescued by a bloody great fish and become a holy prophet for the LORD, so we might not be in such an appalling moral state today.

Re:The other way around

[ChrisA90278]

It's like saying "what if Issac Newton were never born. Likely 20 years later a group of other people would have figured out clasical physics. With Calculus being invented at that time it was only a matter of a few years before it all fell into place. Same with Darwin. Biologists would have figured it out, but later. ... What if there was life that beagal would have discovered had it not crashed? Same thing If it's there we find it later. Maybe 20 yers later but it it's there we find it.

Re:The other way around

[smeenz]

With a question like that, you need to go and read 'Darwin's Watch', by Terry Pratchett, Ian Stewart, and Jack Cohen - as it has some VERY informative and detailed answers to your question.

Seriously.. go read it.

Re:The other way around

[DeadChobi]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but Gottfried Leibniz independantly created Differential Calculus around the time that Newton did. He also came up with the oh-so-useful Leibniz notation which (IMO) is far more useful for thinking of a rate of change than that silly f'(x) crap. Namely, he expressed the derivative as a ratio of two differential elements.

Newton's contribution to classical mechanics is huge. Hell, the guy has three laws named after him.

If it's like other beagles I've known...

[mark0]

... it has probably been busy humping some poor martian's leg all this time.

Re:If it's like other beagles I've known...

[Rick Sands]

Hey, common, that's funny!

In Memoriam Charles M. Schultz

[alephnull42]

Allow me be the first to say:

            "Curse you, Red Baron!"

Re:In Memoriam Charles M. Schultz

[dpilot]

This assumes "Beagle 2" was rooted in the Peanuts metaphor.

OTOH, if "Beagle 2" was rooted in the Darwin metaphor, the crash could be construed as Creationist (or I.D.) revenge, or insufficient I.D. for Beagle 2, itself.

Re:In Memoriam Charles M. Schultz

[elrous0]

This assumes "Beagle 2" was rooted in the Peanuts metaphor.

No, it only assumes a sense of humor.

-Eric

It could be a crash site or a tilted smiley face:)

[digitaldc]

It all depends if you are a pessimist or an optimist.

Re:I, for one, welcome our Martian Snoopy overlord

[lucabrasi999]

Evil Overlord Rule # 50: My main computers will have their own special operating system that will be completely incompatible with standard IBM and Macintosh powerbooks.

That's no space probe...

[Cally]

...it's a smoking hole in the ground!

Thanks, I'm here all week.

Re:That's no space probe...

[Anonymous Coward]

Thanks, I'm here all week.

So you'll be moving along? Can I have your user ID?

Wow

[93 Escort Wagon]

Who'd have thought the Loch Ness monster AND sasquatch were both on Mars?

Not to mention President Truman...

The beagle 2 was designed...

[borawjm]

to seek out life on mars. Perhaps this was some sort of martian conspiracy!

Re:Incredible ... Disturbance? In the Wa?

[davidsyes]

""There is a lot of disturbance in this crater, particularly a big patch on the north crater wall which we think is the primary impact site," Professor Pillinger explains.""

It must've been quite a windy day in Arizona...

But, like the other poster said: "Wow, we can't find Bin Laden on Earth, but we can find Beagle 2 on Mars."

Seems like we've got our priorities misplaced...

Fix what problems? We already did that or no?

[ami-in-hamburg]

I don't see why they didn't just ask the US how we landed two probes successfully. If I remember correctly, those things were supposed to work for a month or two, then die. As far as I know they're still going.

Or were they launched at around the same time to test different landing mechanisms? Could be, who knows?

Space Junk

[Aielman]

With all the super expensive junk we keep dumping on Mars, it'll take better resolution/techniques to determine what's junk and what's a natural feature worth taking a look at.

Wouldn't you look?

[eclipz]

Honestly, if you had a project fail so spectacularly, and with so many people watching, wouldn't you want to do something (or anything) in your power to get back some of your credibility? Sure, they may be able to pinpoint some generic area of failure, such as 'hit too hard' or 'just doesn't work', but it's possible that he may just want to know what happened to his creation and gain a little bit of his own confidence and social status back.

If I sent a craft a few million miles, never heard from it again, and had the ability to possibly find it, I would probably do so.
---

I'm makin' waffles! They got peanuts and soap in 'em!

Re:Wouldn't you look?

[Zaiff Urgulbunger]

I'm sure that is a lot of it on a personal level, but perhaps a bigger part is because if you can't explain what went wrong the first time, you're going to have a tough time getting funding for a second go.

Re:Why?? Send a shovel?

[davidsyes]

Why, that's too costly, even for NASA. They'll contract their Marshi-pino counterparts to pack up the pieces and ship them back to Earth.

Or, worse, the US & UK will advocate ignoring the Earth-based policies toward abandoned vesses and craft. Then, they'll tell the Martians (a la Columbus), "WE discovered YOU!"... There'll be mumbo jumbo about minutae in contracts and then it'll end with the Earthers saying, "Look, a DEAYUL's A DEAYUL!"..

Then, the Martians will promptly (and, rightly) zap our asses back to kingdom come...

Bigfoot, UFOs, Beagle Probes

[mister_llah]

What do those two things have in common?

Horrible photos (usually blurry)

Re:Bigfoot, UFOs, Beagle Probes

[CowsAnonymous]

>Bigfoot, UFO's, Beagle Probes

>What do those two things have in common?

>Horrible photos (usually blurry)

Hey, wait. You listed THREE things. Obviously there are nuts out there who take the blurry photos of the TWO obvious choices, but must we bring the Bigfoot believers into this?

Re:Bigfoot, UFOs, Beagle Probes

[Anonymous Coward]

What do those two things have in common?

You can't count, that's what.

-Sj53

Oops

[LaughingCoder]

The robotic laboratory was designed to search Mars for signs of past or present life.

Scientists are mortified to report that the Beagle 2 did indeed find life on Mars. Unfortunately, due to its poorly controlled re-entry it crashed into and killed all the Martian lifeforms ...

Re:Oops

[wooferhound]

> Scientists are mortified to report that the Beagle 2 did
> indeed find life on Mars.
Unfortunately the government has covered it up and made it look like it hit to hard and disturbed the Earth on Mars.

Crash site misidentified before

[amightywind]

Given that the Mars Polar lander crash site has been misidentified using better imagery, the chances that this is Beagle II are low. The image shown in the article is not compelling. There is the stench of politics surrounding the result. Very nearly worked? Uh Huh.

Re:Crash site misidentified before

[Zaiff Urgulbunger]

Agreed that the images may or may not be Beagle, but the idea of it being a political photoshopping? Nah! There's no need; they've blamed underfunding and/or the Prof. so there's really nothing to gain. Conversely, trying to fake evidence would be a super massively stupid risk.

Fake

[Kalashnikov_BXL]

I think this has proved NOT to be the remains of ESA's spacecraft... nice try though

Re:Fake

[Somegeek]

This is brand new, the first possible sighting of this lander.

I think you are confusing this with reports of finding the crash site of the Mars Polar Lander that were later thought to be in doubt after more images of the same site.

Re:Fix what problems? We already did that or no?

[Anonymous Coward]

Someone must have had a patent on how to land our probes....

From the Article

[cbiltcliffe]

FTA: "Professor Pillinger claims the images show Beagle 2 came very close to being the first spacecraft to mount a concerted search for life on the Martian surface."

The problem is, the Martian that saw it coming down mistakenly thought it was an interplanetary baseball, and gave it a good crack with his bat about 4 feet from the ground. Then it broke apart, he said "Mzck froltk!"(1) and ran off.

(1) "Mzck froltk" translates from Martian native dialect into, roughly, "Oh shit"

Re:From the Article

[Anonymous Coward]

No, it was robotic cricket players.

Re:From the Article

[Dirtside]

(1) "Mzck froltk" translates from Martian native dialect into, roughly, "Oh shit"

Hey! Watch your xrglin' language, klrmzhole!

Willzyx & the Mexican Space Program

[mosel-saar-ruwer]

Now if only they could find Willzyx.

Re:I, for one, welcome our Martian Snoopy overlord

[B3ryllium]

BeOS?

Re:Fix what problems? We already did that or no?

[Tx]

Because the US has had plenty of failures as well as successes landing probes on mars, and Beagle 2 was completed long before Spirit and Opportunity were landed on Mars, so there was no way to know they were going to be a success.

Re:Fix what problems? We already did that or no?

[sane?]

In general if you end up attempting to land in a crater then no matter what you do, and what landing system you have, you are in trouble. Historically US missions have been lucky, although I remember the Apollo 11 crew taking manual control at the last moment to avoid lunar craters/boulders. That could have ended differently.

Beagle was designed to bounce along the surface, losing energy in a controlled manner and coming to a safe stop. Dropping that into a crater is akin to putting the frog in the blender and dialing in a healthy shake. The bits might end up in roughly the same spot, but not necessarily in the same order.

I feel sorry for the Prof. He fought the system to do something that should have had far greater funding, and then they blamed him for what was partly bad luck and partly their fault. If you do a little research into the techology and the experiments planned its really quite amazing stuff. He deserved much more than he got.

Truly a BSOD :-(

[Jugalator]

Beagle Smash of Death? :-/

Re:Truly a BSOD :-(

[wooferhound]

> Beagle Smash of Death? :-/
Beagle Slashdot of Death

Mars Rover to the rescue?

[jebilbrey]

OK, let's just assume for the sake of argument that this is the Beagle...

Is this site anywhere near one of the Mars Rovers? Could they possibly drive there and examine it?

How cool would that be!?!?!

Re:Mars Rover to the rescue?

[Skye16]

I donno that I'd trust Opportunity or Spirit to do much of anything. Have you seen the tracks they've left in the dust? Drunk drivers, obviously!

Re:Mars Rover to the rescue?

[Zaiff Urgulbunger]

Without doubt, this idea will have been considered.... so I guess the distance is too great. It would be cool though!

Re:Mars Rover to the rescue?

[uberdave]

It would, of course, be very cool. However, they aren't even close. For all their travelling, the Spirit and Opportunity have probably not even left the dot that marks their location.

Re:Mars Rover to the rescue?

[shotfeel]

I'm just guessing, but it could take the closest one a couple decades to get there. Considering that they supposedly weren't even meant to last this long....

Q: Where did the Beagle2 go on its vacation?

[eutychus_awakes]

A: All over the Martian countryside!

Re:Q: Where did the Beagle2 go on its vacation?

[syrinx]

What color are the Beagle 2's eyes?

Blue! One blue that way, onto the Martian ground, and.. er, the other one did the same thing.

Definitely Not The Crash Site

[Anonymous Coward]

It looks more like the face on Mars.

It was the white flag that did it...

[PenguinBoyDave]

The French built-in a white flag for good measure to surrender to any Martians they may encounter.

Re:It was the white flag that did it...

[Anonymous Coward]

It broke before launch when a fat American sat on it. Didn't even hear it snap due to his loud complaining.

Re:It was the white flag that did it...

[Anonymous Coward]

Or perhaps it was a Briton after all, since one in four of them are obese.

Later On

[the eric conspiracy]

Better High-Res images find a sign attached which reads "Up Yours Earthlings".

Also..

[NormAtHome]

in other news... Mars declares war after earth space probe kills their leader who was out for an afternoon stroll in the desert... diplomats not hopeful that a peaceful settlement can be reached!

Why not??

[Savage-Rabbit]

In general I fully agree with you but in this instance I think you're a little off the mark. There's no way the Beagle 2 team will be able to determine exactly what went wrong just by analyzing images. All an image -- however high the resolution -- is going to do is confirm that yes, it did crash or yes, it landed properly but failed to communicate. To determine the why and how of their failure would require a mission to investigate the crash site.

I'm not so sure about that. The fact that Beagle has been found at all has already told the designer that it didn't burn up on in the atmosphere and if it was found in more or less the the right place the designer can also conclude that most likely there was nothing wrong with the navigation. If they ever manage to get any close-up photos of Beagle of sufficiently high resolution they can perhaps also determine whether it was damaged on landing, perhaps, due to a failiure of the landing mechanism. If Beagle is structurally intact one would conclude that it is most likely something went wrong with the electronics. While none of this will pinpoint the exact faliure it will still help to rule out at least some causes of faliure and confirm which aspects of the design were sound and which probably weren't which will in turn help with the design of Beagle II if such a mission ever sees the light of day.

Re:Why not??

[Mark_Uplanguage]

Additionally, now that they know it's location - any future lunar rovers that are sent can have the mission of further analysis, which would never be a consideration/possibility if no one kept looking for the wreckage.

Re:Fix what problems? We already did that or no?

[karolo]

Well, at least it landed on Mars. Remember when NASA lost a probe because they mixed up imperial and metric units?

Re:Fix what problems? We already did that or no?

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe they could ask the US how to use a multiple number systems including non-ISO ones, get all confused, and lose two probes to Mars in one go?

Ignorant, arrogant prick.

Mars scorecard

[Like2Byte]

Looks like another entry on the Mars Scorecard.

Mars is winning, folks.

http://www.bio.aps.anl.gov/~dgore/fun/PSL/marsscor ecard.html

THe search tool

[NotFamous]

Now I know why the search tool is named Beagle! I wonder what Kat stand for?

Re:Fix what problems? We already did that or no?

[Anne Thwacks]

As I understand it, if the Europeans sent 1,000 probes, it would still cost less than the US sending one.

Re:Fix what problems? We already did that or no?

[Somegeek]

"I don't see why they didn't just ask the US how we landed two probes successfully."

Because the guy in charge of the project, Professor Pillinger, was too busy bragging about how his probe was so superior to NASA designs.

This was not designed as a cooperative test of differing landing systems. The Beagle 2 project was seriously underfunded and just too short on time to properly test all of their systems.

Moon Landing

[Seldon_21]

If they can find this and detail how/where they think it is located why can't they do the same for the equipment left on the moon?

Re:Moon Landing

[shotfeel]

1) Because we don't have a satellite orbiting the moon at a similar distance.
2) If the pictures are as pixelated as the ones this story is built on, it isn't going to change a skeptic's mind.

Space Probe? They found something else.

[tezza]

A crash reduces
your expensive computer
to a simple stone.

- James Lopez [apparently]

I always loved the Haiku that were all the rage a few years back.
They did get a little overdone on /., but no more than In Russia and pWn3d. Some more I found on google.

Re:Space Probe? They found something else.

[Quiet_Desperation]

I always loved the Haiku that were all the rage a few years back.

Someone told me the rage goes all the way back to 19th century Japan, but I told them that's crazy talk.

Re:Space Probe? They found something else.

[Surt]

Specifically, there was a period of time where haiku were very popular on the internet. Haiku have never been 'all the rage' otherwise.

Re:Space Probe? They found something else.

[Quiet_Desperation]

I know. I was just teasing. Geez. :(

Re:Space Probe? They found something else.

[Anonymous Coward]

A crash reduces
your expensive Mars robot
to broken space junk.

- Anonymous Coward

Re:Space Probe? They found something else.

[Surt]

My fault, I didn't get it the first read through. :-( Hmm, not really :-( what's the emoticon for embarassed?

Re:Space Probe? They found something else.

[Geoffreyerffoeg]

I think ^_^;; would be your best choice, if you're willing to debase yourself to the ^_^ class of emoticons (not that the :-) class is much better...)

Newsmaking

[Stan Vassilev]

Accidentally skip "2 Probe" in the heading and we got news.

Great story

[tsa]

Isn't it fantastic what you can do with a few pixels and some imagination?

Re:Great story

[corbettw]

Isn't it fantastic what you can do with a few pixels and some imagination?

You just described my love life!

Re:Great story

[tsa]

Spot on, hehe :-) But I feel your pain... :-(

A second Beagle probe?

[slashname3]

Is this another dupe? There are two probes crashed on Mars?

Oh, wait, it is the Beagle 2 probe. Never mind. Have seen so many dupes lately it was not clear....

Re:Fix what problems? We already did that or no?

[Somegeek]

posted by Anne Thwacks:

As I understand it, if the Europeans sent 1,000 probes, it would still cost less than the US sending one.

Either you are seriously misinformed or your math skills need some work.

The cost of the Beagle 2 mission is believed to be somewhere around 70-80 million dollars. Once it went over budget they stopped talking about how much it actually cost. It failed. This is not counting its free launch and ride to Mars.

The cost of the NASA twin rovers mission was something like 600 million dollars, or 300 million each. That includes the costs of building the rocketship to get them to Mars. The rovers are still doing science on Mars.

I think NASA got the better deal.

The American lander thought it was WMD!

[Anonymous Coward]

So it automatically attacked anything moving around on the surface... Damn it wasn't Osama!

RORSHOCK

[thecpuguru]

Looking at the picture reminds me of ink blots...

Re:RORSHOCK

[Archimboldo]

No, you're wrong. See those dots? They're keys on a keyboard! It's a picture of a frustrated slashdot user who nobody understands. None of his submissions make it and he doesn't have enough karma points. And not only that trolls are probably out to get him.

Could it possibly be...

[Anonymous Coward]

Wouldn't it be pretty likely that the beagle was spotted to begin with?

The thing looks like a suitcase

[Arcane Heretic]

The Beagle looked like a suitcase anyway, they should have had the outer casing built by samsonite. The we would get back nice pictures of Martians jumping up and down on it to now avail.

Re:Incredible ... Disturbance? In the Wa?

[rocjoe71]

Seems like we've got our priorities misplaced...

Yes I agree, let's re-assign those scientists studying Mars. Tell them to suck it up, go find Bin Laden and do something useful for a change.

"Google Mars"

[Anonymous Coward]

They'll be able to find it right after Google announces their "Google Mars" product next month ;-)

Beagle probe spotted on Mars

[RealProgrammer]

Was it spotted before, or just mottled like other beagles?

Re: Beagle name rooted in Darwin

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, OK then.

"Curse you, Pat Robertson!!"

secret world government failure

[Anonymous Coward]

Obviously, even though the long-range intrastellar electronics jammers within the secret world government were able to crash the Beagle 2, they weren't able to hide the remains. Investigation of the on-board electronics will reveal the truth. Mars has much to hide; Cydonia is just the tip of the iceberg.

Re:Why?? Send a shovel?

[Anonymous Coward]

Then, the Martians will promptly (and, rightly) zap our asses back to kingdom come...

Sweet! I am waiting patiently for the day our Martian Overlords show themselves (so that I may welcome them, of course). And also for the day when they attack us so that I might ask of ye: Where is thine God now?

Re:It could be a crash site or a tilted smiley fac

[callqcmd]

Looks like a face of baby jesus to me. Holy crap! this picture will be appearing on ebay soon. I'm bidding high on this one. Surely is one big christmas miracle.

Get out of there!

[altan]

It probably went to hell and back, and now it's alive.

Re:Get out of there!

[Anonymous Coward]

That was one freaky movie.

Re:Fix what problems? We already did that or no?

[Anonymous Coward]

> Either you are seriously misinformed or your math skills need some work.

I'm afraid that there may be a third possibility that you have overlooked. I suspect that the GP may have been an example of sarcastic hyperbole - in which case it was most engaging of you to rise to it! I'm sure they will be much more careful to check their facts before resorting to such jollity in future.

I personally abhor such flippancy about these serious issues, especially when there are impressionable young people present with fragile patriotic egos, who may be stirred into ungainly displays of righteousness. The internet doesn't need these blatant untruths being tossed about, especially after the recent revelations that information on the internet may sometimes be incorrect.

Speaking of which, the Wikipedia article on the Rover missions says that they cost $820m, not $600m. Do you want to fix it, or shall I?

Not cool

[donutello]

You choose this, one of the darkest days of the year, to make fun of those of us living in the northern latitudes?

(If you live far enough North, the sun will set over the Southern Horizon today - that is if you see it at all)

Re:Not cool

[shobadobs]

There is no "southern horizon." Unless you're standing on the north pole, in which case the whole horizon is southern. Otherwise, the southern horizon is just a point. It's not like the horizon is some square with southern, northern, eastern, and mid-western edges.

The Beagle2 --- oh Darwin

[themerc]

Intelligent Design?

Wise in the Ways of Science

[kaellinn18]

Only if it weighs the same as a Martian duck.

Re:Wise in the Ways of Science

[shawn(at)fsu]

I just made you a friend for that one. Nice.

Mars Express loses publicity war to JPL

[peter303]

JPL is "open source" putting all Rover raw images and other data on the web within 72 hours of receiving. The ESA so slowly trickles out its results that I dont even bother looking at them.

Evolution by Natural Selection BEFORE Darwin

[peter303]

Wallace came up with the same idea as Darwin a few years later and submitted it for reading before the Royal Society before Darwin wrote up his ideas. So the theory of evolution by natural selection was an idea "waiting to happen" and would eventually be published by somebody.

Darwin's friends intercepted the paper, and told Darwin who nearly had a nervous breakdown. Wallace graciously allowed both papers to be presented before the Society simultaneously. Darwin fleshed his out with reams of observations and experiments and several controversial books.

Canali on Mars!

[ishmalius]

Could it be possible that he is "seeing" too much in that photo, like Schiaparelli or Percival Lowell? I have seen some amazing analyses of photographic intelligence before, but interpreting so much from so few pixels is astounding. Obviously there is no wishful thinking happening here in this "extrapolation."

Re:Fix what problems? We already did that or no?

[anzha]

Because the guy in charge of the project, Professor Pillinger, was too busy bragging about how his probe was so superior to NASA designs.

Actually, this shouldn't be labeled as flamebait.

Prof Pillinger has been bagging on NASA and the NASA probes for some time (esp about cost).

This announcement may in fact be about really finding Beagle 2. It might also be a desperate attempt to regain some sort of credibility. Pillinger was damned pretty thoroughly by that ESA report on the Beagle 2 mission.

I thought an all-metric design...

[arfonrg]

Since this was a metric-only project, I thought this sort if thing wasn't supposed to happen! I mean there were no UK/US used anywhere in it so, there could be no mis-calculations like in the mars orbiter.

(for the slow people: this is sarcasm)

Re:Fix what problems? We already did that or no?

[Somegeek]

Why is this modded flamebait? This is all factual and on-topic. The GP asked why the Beagle project didn't ask NASA for design assistance. My answer is that the head of the project believed that their technology was better than NASA's, and went so far as to brag about it.

from a CNN article: http://www.cnn.com/2003/TECH/space/06/02/mars.race /

In 2000, Pillinger pilloried the NASA rovers as "much less scientifically accomplished." Unlike them, he told a meeting of British scientists, "Beagle 2 won't be going sightseeing."

It is also mentioned in the Wikipedia article article on him: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colin_Pillinger

My comment about the funding/time difficulties of the project is also factual, its not really disputed that this is one of the root causes of the failure of the mission. They simply didn't have the time or money to test critical components of the mission.

MOON Re:wait!

[Forge]

Dose anyone know where I can find pictures of the Apolo landing site (somewhere in the sea of tranquility on the moon) taken from earth ?

that would be interesting.

Re:MOON Re:wait!

[jacksonj04]

Not from Earth, but give Google Moon (Seriously) a try:

http://moon.google.com/

Wrong breed...

[frostilicus2]

"Beagle 2 spotted on mars"

Sounds like more like a Dalmation to me.

Re:Why?? Whodunnit??

[swordfishBob]

Of course it is - Beagle2 got pixellated on the way down. But who did it, and why?

Beagle 2 Probe Spotted on Mars

[PigIronBob]

look at the right side of the image, looks like a face to me.....

Whee! Spinnnn!

[Guysmiley777]

"...images suggest the mission very nearly worked...

You can't tell a thing from those images. NASA might as well say "Challenger very nearly made it to orbit".

Alert Richard C. Hoagland!

[Anonymous Coward]

Phone Art Bell, get Richard C. Hoagland on with some of his hyper-interesting thoughts on the Beagle landing...

Saving Face and not much else

[DestroyAllZombies]

Colin Pillinger comes up with these claims from time to time. It allows him to say, "Oh, it very nearly worked" instead of admitting it was astonishingly poorly run and underfunded. Just google his comments pre-launch and you'll see karma in action. He's as close to a crackpot to anyone you'll find.

Horseshoes and Hand Grenades

[StikyPad]

Colin Pillinger says the images suggest the mission very nearly worked.. in much the same way cars very nearly miss when they crash into each other.

how many?

[kehren77]

I was just wondering... How the hell many craft have we crashed into that poor planet?

It's no wonder the Martians want to kill us all.