Apparently Martians didn't hijack the Polar Lander afterall!

Kevin

Code Monkey
Staff member
Remember a few years back a high dollar launch to Mars vanished? It may have been found after all this time, disspelling any theories that it was abducted by angry martians upset about us hurling pieces of machinery at their planet. :P

Source: http://www.cnn.com/2005/TECH/space/05/06/mars.lander.ap/index.html

Nearly six years after NASA's Mars Polar Lander vanished during a landing attempt on the Red Planet, a scientist said he has spotted what appears to be wreckage of the spacecraft.
The observation came during a re-examination of grainy, black-and-white images taken by the orbiting Mars Global Surveyor, which searched for the probe with no success in 1999 and 2000.

"The observation of a single, small dot at the center of the disturbed location suggests that the vehicle remained more or less intact after its fall," wrote Michael Malin, president and chief scientist of San Diego-based Malin Space Science Systems, which operates the camera aboard Global Surveyor.

If you read the full article there are some pictures of the site.
 
Interesting because I remember watching that landing and wondering what could have gone wrong. I remember being disappointed at the 'science lost'
 
this morning on BBC Radio World Service i heard that a scientist had spotted the parachutes.

maybe the craft came down on top of a controlled habitat environment for scouts from a heavier gravity well and the artificial gravity environment created by the machinery they'd sunk under the habitat sucked the lander down too fast for its own safety and squashed it like a bug against the habitat roof?

(the lines getting tangled on opening has been done to death :smiley: )
 
Speculation...The Lander absorbed too much Star Matter in the trip to the Red Planet and upon chute deployment commenced to immitate a falling star. It succeeded.
 
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