BRITAIN: Beagle 2, the British space probe which disappeared as it descended towards Mars, may have been detected on the surface of the Red Planet, scientists said yesterday.
No signal has been received from the craft since it was due to land on Christmas Day last year, despite various attempts by Mars orbiters and telescopes on Earth to make contact.
But photographic images of the area where Beagle 2 was to have come down show four bright spots, dubbed a "string of pearls" by scientists, which may be the remains of the probe.
Prof Colin Pillinger, the British scientist in charge of the Beagle 2 project, told a conference at the Royal Society in London he doubted the image was the probe and was more likely to be "system noise" - an error on the image.
The conference, which was called to discuss the lessons learnt from the Beagle 2 mission, also heard that eight to 13 per cent of the probe's suspected landing area was littered with craters and hills, making a safe landing difficult. A NASA mission to Mars landed two probes on the planet in January."