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Lost Beagle2 Probe Found 'Intact' On Mars
New submitter Stolga sends this report from the BBC:
The missing Mars robot Beagle2 has been found on the surface of the Red Planet, apparently intact. High-resolution images taken from orbit have identified its landing location, and it looks to be in one piece. The UK-led probe tried to make a soft touchdown on the dusty world on Christmas Day, 2003, using parachutes and airbags — but no radio contact was ever made with the probe. Many scientists assumed it had been destroyed in a high-velocity impact.
The new pictures, acquired by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, give the lie to that notion, and hint at what really happened to the European mission. Beagle's design incorporated a series of deployable "petals," on which were mounted its solar panels. From the images, it seems that this system did not unfurl fully. "Without full deployment, there is no way we could have communicated with it as the radio frequency antenna was under the solar panels," explained Prof Mark Sims, Beagle's mission manager from Leicester University.
The new pictures, acquired by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, give the lie to that notion, and hint at what really happened to the European mission. Beagle's design incorporated a series of deployable "petals," on which were mounted its solar panels. From the images, it seems that this system did not unfurl fully. "Without full deployment, there is no way we could have communicated with it as the radio frequency antenna was under the solar panels," explained Prof Mark Sims, Beagle's mission manager from Leicester University.
Dammit! First it's spy satellites watching my every movement on earth, and now you can't even have privacy ON MARS!
AntiFA: An abbreviation for Anti First Amendment.
Despite the fact that I know that the probe's namesake was the HMS Beagle, of Darwin fame, the news that a lost beagle has been found on mars still conjures up an enormously sad image of a small dog, curled up tightly; but still frozen solid, in the vast emptiness of the martian landscape.
So... blame it on the Martians for holding it wrong?
Open Source Network Inventory for the masses! Kuwaiba
Little probe, lonely on mars, seeks companionship
Or maybe just someone to listen
Please respond
Maibox empty for 11 years now
Have you forgotten me?
SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.