Dec 20, 2005, 10:04 GMT
London - The British scientist behind the ill-fated Beagle 2 space mission to Mars two years ago believes that parts of the craft's wreckage might have been spotted on Mars.
Professor Colin Pillinger told the BBC Tuesday that new images suggest the mission very nearly worked, but Beagle somehow failed to contact Earth.
He believes that the craft may have hit the ground too hard - as the atmosphere was thinner than usual because of dust storms in that region of Mars.
This may have damaged onboard instruments, preventing the call home.
The lead scientist of the Beagle 2 mission has been painstakingly studying images of the landing site in search of his spacecraft ever since it was lost on Christmas Day of 2003.
Now, he says, especially processed pictures from the camera on the U.S. space agency NASA's Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft show that it came down in a crater close to the planned landing site.
The robotic laboratory was designed to search Mars for signs of past or present life. The last contact was an image of Beagle taken by its mothership, the Mars Express orbiter, December 19, 2003.
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