The presence of such a large amount of water ice under Mars’s surface is very surprising. Especially so close to the surface!” says Gerhard Schwehm, Head of the Planetary Missions Division at ESA. The team working on ESA’s Mars Express, the next mission to the Red Planet, is thrilled by NASA’s Mars Odyssey detection of hydrogen-rich layers under the Martian surface. This hydrogen indicates the presence of water ice in the top surface of the Martian soil in a large region surrounding the planet’s south pole. ESA’s Mars Express, ready for launching in June 2003, has the tools for searching much deeper below the surface, down to a few kilometres. “Mars Express will give a more global picture of where the water is and how deep,” says Patrick Martin, ESA deputy project scientist for the Mars Express mission.
Mars Express has the sophisticated science to find the water ice on Mars European Space Agency (ESA)
Mars lander team encouraged
UK scientists say they could win the race to find proof of life on Mars, following reports that new signs of water have been detected. A British-led effort will get the first chance next year to dig for evidence.
Boost for life on Mars hunt
Britain’s project to land a probe to look for life on Mars next year has received a big boost in the form of a
Is there life on Mars? The Daily Telegraph
Next year, a set of complex, temperamental and hugely expensive scientific instruments will be strapped to the top of a rocket and violently shaken as they are launched into space. Six months later, they will be hurled into the atmosphere of Mars at 14,000mph. Cushioned by balloons, they will bounce to the surface, roll to a stop and then switch themselves on without, it is hoped, a single glitch. The scientists behind the Beagle 2 project have spent the past few weeks making sure that those vibrations, knocks and shakes will not scupper their
Europe speeds into space The Australian
Europe is to reopen the space race by launching one of the fastest spacecraft so far for a landing on a melting comet. The mission is part of a series to demonstrate Europe’s growing challenge to US domination in space. One will look at the origins of the universe, another seek planets similar to earth. The most ambitious will land on Mars to seek the top prize – confirmation of alien life. One of the most dramatic will be the launch next January of the European Space Agency’s Rosetta mission to Comet Wirtanen. After its launch, Rosetta will orbit Earth twice and Mars once, using their gravitational pull to match the comet’s speed of up to 134,400k/mh. Once it has caught up with Wirtanen, it will drop a lander on the surface, then follow the comet towards the sun. Scientists hope Rosetta will provide some of the most exciting pictures since the US landed on the moon 33 years ago. The space race will accelerate four months later when ESA and NASA, the US space agency, send missions to Mars within a few days of one another. Three spacecraft – one European and two US – should arrive at Mars about Christmas 2003.
Martian spots warrant a close look European Space Agency (ESA)
Are dark spots that appear near the south pole of Mars in early spring, a sign of life on the Red Planet? No-one can say for sure, according to a group of scientists who met at ESTEC, ESA’s technical centre in the Netherlands. But the spots are certainly fascinating, the meeting agreed, and well worth a detailed look by Mars Express, the European Space Agency’s Mars mission, when it goes into orbit around the Red Planet in late 2003. Agustin Chicarro, ESA project scientist for Mars Express, called the meeting after the spots began fuelling controversy here on Earth last summer. “As a geologist, I found the spots quite perplexing and very exciting. I wanted to tap a broad spectrum of expert opinion to decide whether they warrant closer examination by Mars Express,” he said.
Mission to Mars from Milton Keynes Electronic Telegraph
THE man most likely to answer the question “Is there life on Mars?” is not a Nasa scientist in a Houston laboratory but a 58-year-old, wild-haired professor who keeps cows on a farm in Cambridgeshire. Prof Colin Pillinger is the mastermind behind Britain’s first space probe, Beagle 2, which is due to land on Mars on December 23, 2003, and spend six months analysing Martian rocks, soil and gases for signs that the planet ever supported life. It is only Prof Pillinger’s enthusiasm and implacable faith that have turned into reality his academic obsession with the search for life on Mars. He is a specialist in analysing rocks from other planets and has extensively studied Martian meteorites.
One day there will be Parklife on Mars IOL
Fans of British pop band Blur always thought their music was out of this world. Now it really will be. A musical sequence recorded by the mega-selling foursome will herald the arrival of a British space probe on Mars. The track will be beamed back to Earth when the probe, Beagle 2, lands on the Red Planet in December 2003. It is part of the European Space Agency’s Mars Express mission to find proof of life on Mars.
British Pop Band Blur to Take Music to Mars
Fans of British pop band Blur always thought their music was out of this world. Now it really will be. A musical sequence recorded by the mega-selling foursome will herald the arrival of a British space probe on Mars. The track will be beamed back to Earth when the probe, Beagle 2, lands on the Red Planet in December 2003. It is part of the European Space Agency’s Mars Express mission to find proof of life on Mars.
Central role for Aarhus University in Mars project The Copenhagen Post
Aarhus University is set to play a central role in plans by the European space agency, ESA, to launch its first mission to the surface of Mars in 2003. The university is behind a project to develop equipment used on the Mars Express expedition and has now opened its new Mars laboratory, where it will carry out testing of the equipment needed for the mission to the red planet. One of the first pieces of equipment to undergo research was