By Richard C. Hoaglandenterprisemission.com "It Only Takes ONE White Crow ..."
For over twenty years, The Enterprise Mission has pursued an extraordinary scientific and political hypothesis ....That the Earth orbits the Sun, not as "the only lush oasis amid a host of lifeless other worlds ..." but as, potentially, the lone planetary survivor of a long-forgotten ancient solar system epoch, shaped by "an extraordinarily advanced, Type II ET Civilization" -- which, after literally remaking this entire planetary system ... collapsed in a catastrophic, ancient War-- Leaving only scattered, arcane clues behind to its existence -- including, some evidence suggests, the human race itself ....* * *
The scientific origins of this still-evolving Enterprise hypothesis trace back to the seminal discovery by NASA, in the"Viking Summer" of 1976, of an extraordinary Martian surface "artifact" -- first photographed from orbit by the Viking unmanned mission ....The highly controversial "face on Mars."Instantly dismissed as merely "a trick of light and shadow," the exploration of the Face's potentially "game changing" scientific origins has been center stage in the Enterprise Mission's subsequent investigation of "Cydonia" (the name of the geographic location of this amazing Martian feature) for more than 30 years ....Subsequent NASA unmanned Mars missions (after a series of much-publicized national media "campaigns," led by Enterprise, to secure far better imagery of "the face on Mars" than Viking), finally succeeded in the early 1990's in returning startling new evidence -- of additional "statue-like" details of "the Face" -- that are impossible to scientifically "explain away" now as "merely tricks of lighting"--Including, this stunning 2003 NASA composite (created by Enterprise from official NASA data - below) -- consisting of a black and white Mars Surveyor image (taken with afternoon light coming from the west), coupled with a "pre-dawn" Mars Surveyor color image, with pre-dawn lighting coming from the east. The result is clearly an unbelievably ancient ... heavily eroded ... artificial monument -- its eastern side inexplicably "glowing," even in the early Martian twilight -- with obvious geometric ... prismatic ... crystalline glass structure ....Was this enigmatic "Face on Mars" deliberately left behind, then, as a haunting "clue" to our own, in many ways, still baffling existence ... on this planet? A Clue--In the form of an ancient, uniquely human monument of mile-wide "mega-engineering" to our own literal creation ... left amid a "city" of equally staggering examples of "mega-engineering pyramids" (below) ... on the reddish sands of Mars--By this same, long-vanished "Type II Civilization?"As Enterprise, across more than thirty years, has assembled more and more compelling evidence supporting this radical idea ... the science behind the even larger hypothesis -- that this entire solar system was, somehow, in the dim and distant past, deliberately "rearranged" to support the existence of human life itself -- has also quietly evolved ....Recent, peer-reviewed astronomical observations and analysis -- stemming from NASA's revolutionary Kepler space telescope "exo-planetary" observations of the numbers and types of "super-earth planets" found orbiting even "near-by, sun-like stars" -- have recently reached a startling "mainstream" conclusion:"... it seems clear that our [own] Solar System — which contains no planet interior to Mercury’s P = 88 day orbit — did not participate in a major if not the dominant mode of planet formation in the Galaxy ...
"Super-earths [planets in the range of 5 to 10 times the Earth's mass] are not anomalous; they are the rule that our Solar System breaks. In a sense, the burden of explaining planetary system architectures rests more heavily on the Solar System [now] than on the rest of the Galaxy’s planet population at large [emphasis added] ...."
This gradually dawning scientific "paradigm shift" -- that there is something uniquely "wrong" (or, right!) about this solar system -- even at the level of simple planetary orbits and formation -- in our opinion, takes our 30-year-old Enterprise idea from merely being "a far-out possibility"--To the level of a scientifically-supported model -- that could be the likely explanationfor the extraordinary solar system discoveries that NASA (and the other space agencies ...) have quietly ... secretly ... been finding, and then rigidly suppressing--For more than fifty years!* * *
Which brings us to what potentially could be the climax, now, of these last five decades of unprecedented solar system exploration ... and deception:The increasingly inexplicable NASA actions going on around its latest planetary probe -- a new robot, sent just last year to once again explore another region on the surface of the planet Mars ....A robot named appropriately "Curiosity."And what Enterprise has now discovered of Curiosity's REAL (if still unspoken ...) "Mars Science Laboratory" Mission:Of officially (if we're reading the murky "tea leaves" correctly ...)"discovering" ... and then,finally, revealing--The existence of "an ancient, intelligently-inhabited epoch" on the Planet Mars!Which, if it comes to pass, will mark the beginnings of the eventual unwinding and confirmation of our much larger Enterprise Mission, solar-system-wide, "Type II ET Hypothesis."
An impending political and scientific revolution which -- if our analysis continues to bear out -- could become visible, even to the general public and the media, as early as this year--2013.Which would, of course--Change everything ....* * *
Some further background ....
As readers of Enterprise should remember, this entire turgid tale of official "space agency deception" -- over what it's REALLY been finding (then hiding!) in the solar system for these past 50 years -- traces back, in part, to ONE specific document, revealed by our political investigations decades ago ... a "high-level" government Report to NASA (below) -- commissioned at the end of the Eisenhower Administration (in the late 1950’s) by a newly-founded "NASA."
Researched and delivered to NASA in 1960 by the famed “Brookings Institution” (a well-known, private Washington “policy think-tank”), the Report that was eventually (under the Kennedy Administration) delivered to the Eighty-Seventh Congress in 1961 and then made public, specifically warned that-- “Premature disclosure of the existence of intelligent extraterrestrial life ... or even, the proven existence of their ruins elsewhere in the solar system ..." – could, literally--Destroy human civilization!
Faced with such dire political projections at the literal "Dawn of the Space Age," the US Space Agency (according to our Enterprise analysis ...) half a century ago began a "global, political, secret scientificcampaign" (documented in "The Monuments of Mars" and "Dark Mission: the Secret History of NASA") to eliminate -- from all scientific publications and mainstream discussions of its data -- any and all evidence of itsearly confirmationof the accumulating reality of “extraterrestrial ruins ... all across the solar system.”
Further--
Any evidence politically proving that "acquiring that crucial confirmation first hand" -- via a flurry of manned and unmanned early NASA interplanetary missions -- was, in fact, the ultimate reason for "the creation (in 1958, by President Eisenhower) of NASA (as a secret adjunct to the DOD) itself, was also ruthlessly suppressed!"
We've spent decades pursuing this unique Enterprise "extraterrestrial archaeological and political investigation," with increasing evidence supporting these startling conclusions; amid our redundant, geometric discoveries laid out in the Intelligently-Designed Complex at Cydonia, we eventually also realized that, in parallel with the shattered remains of this "ancient, solar system-wide civilization" ... there was a parallel, even more important, long-lost "Hyperdimensional Physics" in those ruins ... also waiting to be rediscovered--
A Physics -- directly "coded" (via its unmistakable "tetrahedral geometry") ... all across Cydonia itself (below)!
As has also been presented many times on Enterprise -- the latest recitation here -- this extraordinary, rediscovered field of "Hyperdimensional/Torsion Field Physics" leads, in turn, directly to an equally-extraordinary Torsion Field Technology ....
Machines which can affect -- and fundamentally transform -- not only all known interactions between "energy and matter" (such as tapping into a source of limitless, non-polluting energy ...) -- via direct manipulation of the underlying "torsion field" (aether) of three-dimensional Reality--
But a technology which, based on unlimited matter transformation, can fundamentally re-engineer entire solar systems -- literally building "artificial worlds" (below) ... if not "terraforming" natural ones into any new environment the Terraforming Engineers desire ....
It is only the existence of "Hyperdimensional Physics" that makes possible the very concept of "a Type II Civilization."
But, there was more ....
Coded in the arcane, multi-dimensional mathematics and geometry spread across the long-abandoned ruins at Cydonia were not only the keys to the Physics for rearranging the existence of all matter and energy in 3-D "physical reality" ....
But--
Potentially, of proving the hyperdimensional basis ofConsciousness itself!
In recently reported science, there is accumulating evidence of major consciousness increases, long term, among all human populations -- based on the global results of standardized "IQ tests," going back at least a hundred years ....
Termed "the Flynn Effect," these documented changes are attributed (by some ...) to actual advances in "IQs"; we, on the other hand, have analyzed the published data NOT as "increases in fundamental human intelligence" (actually, the least likely interpretation of the data ... given the lack of any other supporting evidence for such an on-going intellectual "Renaissance!"), but as potential biological side-effects of "a changing background solar system HD/Torsion Field"--
And its fundamental "connection" to the human brain.
An"HD process," we project, which is actually increasing human intuition -- and thereby, increasing intuitive abilities for taking "IQ tests!"
If true, this continuing increase in human intuitive responses (the ability to successfully "know" the truth at an increasing rate, regardless of "logical" information to the contrary) leads us to an imminent political and social opportunity:
An increasing capability -- for an increasing percentage of the globe -- to "see through" long-standing official lies and deliberate deceptions (like, NASA's ...) -- to the underlying "truths."
If this expanded model for "the Flynn Effect" is accurate, there should also be a "consciousness window" coming, a window (based on the "rising background HD Physics") where efforts to "change the status quo" -- based on "what is REALLY going on" versus "the lies we're being told"--
Could actually break through -- based, again, on the solar system's measurably changing HD/Torsion Field ....
A "heightened conscious window ..." opening, so our HD/Torsion Model predicted, near the end of the much-hyped "Long Count Mayan Calendar" ....
If any of this preceding analysis was true, it raised the important question of "the ultimate purpose" of the Long- Count Calendar itself--
A Calendar obviously counting down to ... Something.
Could that "something" be, in part, a return to a too-long delayed, global realization of "who we really are?"
Beginning with the Truth--
On Mars?
We should soon know ....
Enter--
NASA's latest Martian rover -- "Curiosity" ....* * *
"Curiosity" -- the first nuclear-powered "roving vehicle" to be sent to the surface of another planet -- made a successfully "miracle landing" on the the planet Mars, Monday morning, August 6, 2012 ... at 05:17:57.3 UTC -- in a ~100-mile-wide, ancient Martian crater known as "Gale." IF all the diverse elements of our extended scientific and political analysis (above) have been correctly figured out ... NASA’s latest and most powerful unmanned “Mars Science Laboratory” rover mission -- which has been exploring the deepest sections of Gale Crater now for almost a full year -- is poised to finally, officially, reveal (and possibly, within the next few months ...) its "secret" Mission to Gale Crater:To publicly expose -- after almost forty years -- the reality of "the ancient, inhabited history of Mars" ....Now, political projections (as opposed to scientific analyses ...) are always "dangerous" for journalists, politicians ... and certainly for scientists; as I have often cautioned readers here at Enterprise (to say nothing of countless "Coast" audiences I've also tried to warn ...), when you "step outside the box" and attempt to make a bold "political prediction" in this business -- especially, re the continuing NASA Cover-Up -- a LOT can go wrong ... specifically designed (by those behind that Cover-Up) to make you look "uncredible", i.e.-- "Really stupid."
Not the least of which -- once you've "blown" NASA's political strategy, vis a vis a coming, dramatic CHANGE in this decades-long "hiding of the REAL solar system" strategy ....They may ... JUST to "spite you"--
Simply change the time frame ... of their planned, carefully "spun," unveiling!With that crucial caveat out of the way, here goes our own "best guess" as to what MAY happen ... "shortly" -- vis a vis NASA's remarkable, on-going "Curiosity" Mars mission--Which, in total contradiction to decades of repeated lies and cover-up, is quietly making public -- even as we write! -- indisputable imaging evidence proving the existence of "a former, ancient, high-tech Type II Civilization on the planet Mars" ....
All that's been missing, up'til now, has been an "official" NASA declaration--That that's what we are looking at!And that is our "dangrous" political prediction:That -- within the next few months -- NASA is going to finally do--Exactly that.Officially declare--"We have now discovered robust scientific evidence ... of a former Martian civilization!"When (and if!) this remarkable political development DOES take place, it will only be belated confirmation of an early Enterprise Mission assessment we made last year, re "Curiosity's" REAL mission (during one of our many appearances on "Coast"); it was then that we first publicly anticipated thiseventual "political unveiling" of the REAL Mars ... as the ultimate goal behindthe entire Curiosity Mission!Including, its carefully chosen landing site ellipse (below) -- inside an equally carefully-selected ancient location on Mars ... called "Gale Crater."* * *
Gale is a remarkable, 96-mile-wide ancient impact "scar" -- lying just below the Martian equator, at 4.5 degrees south. This color-coded NASA topographic map (above/below) depicts the range of altitude and depth exhibited by the geological features surrounding (and within) Gale Crater, compared to the "average datum" on Mars (essentially, the equivalent of distance above or below "sea level"); the depth and heights inside Gale range from over 2.8 miles (4.5 kilometers) below the Martian "datum" (coded in blue ...) to 0.9 miles above it (seen in rusty orange ...).What makes Gale "remarkable" however, is not its diameter ... or depth ... but what lies in its center:A vast, multi-layered "mountain" (higher than the surrounding crater rim, in some places!) -- nicknamed by NASA, "Mt. Sharp" (ostensibly, in honor of an almost legendary early space-age Cal Tech "planetary geologist," the late Robert Sharp); in truth, when I first heard "what" the Curiosity Team had nicknamed the ~3.5-miles-high, mysterious accumulation of "something" in the center of Gale Crater [its formal IAU designation is "Aeolis Mons"], my first thought was that the JPL folks were making a cute, inside "play on words" ... regarding Mt. Sharp's unmistakably obvious "tetrahedral summit" (below)!Three-D computer modeling by NASA of Aeolis Mons (below), makes it even more apparent just how accurate that informal designation -- "Mt. Sharp" -- as applied to this enigmatic "structure" inside Gale, truly is ....Initially, in fact, it was this blatant "tetrahedral" appearance of the summit of "Mt. Sharp" which called my own attention to the possibility that the "mysterious, ~3.5 mile high 'mountain'" taking up the bulk of Gale Crater could, in fact, be the ancient and decaying remains of yet another ... this time, truly gargantuan--"Martian arcology" .... Previous examples of "tetrahedral geometry" have been found elsewhere on Mars, of course -- on multiple NASA (and ESA) images, taken of many different regions, by many successive orbital missions ... stretching now over more than 30 years; these Martian "tetrahedral" discoveries began with our own extensive research on Cydonia -- in the form of indentifying the Giza-sized "tetrahedral mounds" located southeast of "the City, that I first discovered in 1983 on enhanced and recitified versions of the original NASA Viking imagery (below). A related, more advanced form of "Martian tetrahedral geometry" -- known as a "Reuleaux Tetrahedron" -- was found on an early Mars Surveyor image (by an individual nicknamed "Mosco"), taken more than 20 years after Viking (below) -- curiously, also in the Martian geographic region called "Cydonia" (but, located quite a distance from "the City" and "the Face"). A Reuleaux Tetrahedron is a three-dimensionalconstruct, stemming from expanding into another dimension its base two-dimensional "tetrahedral" plane geometry -- a Reuleaux Triangle (below).The redundancy across Mars of multiple variants of this specific geometric form -- the Tetrahedron -- is consistent, of course, with the overarching "Message of Cydonia" that we also figured out in 1983; that, the underlying tetrahedral mathematics and geometry echoed time and time again in "Martian architecture," found now all around the planet, is THE "code key" to understanding (and ultimately utilizing ...) the vast powers and understandings inherent in "Hyperdimensional/Torsion Field Physics" itself ....
Essential to creating any truly advanced planetary (or solar system) civilization ....Here (below) is the most spectacular and best preserved 3-D version of this crucially significant "geometry" yet found -- a fully three-dimensional Reuleaux Tetrahedral Pyramid, discovered by the late Wilmer Faust on Mars Surveyor image E06002 -- taken July 7, 2001 in West Candor Chasma (one of the smaller, northern side canyons of the vast ~3000-mile-long "Vallis Marineris" system).Measuring on the original NASA image almost 300 feet across, the feature (above) looks almost pristine -- the apparent result of being fairly "recently" exhumed ... after an unknown period (millions of years?) of deep "overburden" burial at the bottom of Candor Chasma -- the receding dunes still visible around it, partially covering (and thus concealing and still protecting) its northern base (upper right) ....Eventually, geologists might be able to estimate an age for this astonishing example of "tetrahedral Martian architecture" -- if a reliable geological date for when it was initially buried could be derived from satellite measurements; if that turns out not to be possible, an in-person visit someday by a human expedition certainly seems warrented -- if, for no other reason ... than to find out what's been (deliberately?) preserved ... INSIDE.On higher resolution Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) images (PSP_3896_1740 and PSP_002841_1740 - below), taken in early 2007, the initial impressions of "newness" from the Mars Surveyor image is tempered by better evidence of "significant erosion" ... including, realization that major portions of the northern "face" of this fascinating structure have, in fact, collapsed ... leaving a deep "talus slope" of bright, pyramid construction materials slumped against its northern base!
In this side-by-side comparison (below), the heavy damage and burial of the northern face (and the northern end of the southwestern face) of this extraordinary construct is readily apparent -- by comparing the MRO vertical (within a few degrees ...) image (left) with the geometric base outline of an undamaged Reuleaux Tetrahedrom (right) ....
In this second comparison (below) -- the ancient West Candor Pyramid (left) ... and a three-D physical model of the same tetrahedral geometry (right) -- notice on the latter, how the curve of the vertex edge closest to the camera precisely echos the mirrored "curving vertex" of the actual "Reuleaux Tetrahedron Pyramid" (in this black & white version of PSP_002841_1740RGB), to the left.
Further note, as illustrated by the model, that the most reliable means of constructing such an exotic 3-D geometry is to build it vertically in carefully-shaped(decreasing diameter) layers ... a key structural detail that will be confirmed on the actual Martian "Candor Pyramid, as we soon examine close-up MRO images of its best survivng "western face" ....
Here (below - right) is that full resolution, color MRO close-up of Wil Faust's astonishing discovery -- as seen on PSR_003896_1740.
The view reveals a host of new, tell-tale structural elements of this remarkable ruin -- including details of its (now) missing former casing on the lower-right hand "face," and the massive structural damage caused when the northern "face" (upper right) literally collapsed ... resulting in debris cascading down the surviving, exposed interior "shelves" ... to form a deep "talus" completely covering (and thus distorting) the northern base.
The third "face" (left), however, appears far more intact, including, much of its original external, brilliant casing (inset) -- the latter appearing as a series of "highly reflective, closely-spaced, horizontal sequences of parallel layers ... " seen stubbornly still clinging to much of the western face's lower expanse ....Because significant portions of the northen face have, for unknown reasons, "sheered away" -- leaving major interior elements exposed -- we are now able to see some key structural details that would otherwise be hidden by the bulk of the previously undamaged Pyramid ... including, one remarkable, highly precise geometric feature ... positioned exactly on the northwest "tetrahedral vertex":What appears to be a large (~20-foot ...), perfectly square doorway (arrow - below) -- seen (from MRO's vertical orbital perspective ...) diagonally.An apparent deliberate opening ... into the Candor Pyramid's mysterious interior!The MRO view of this extraordinary object provides not only ample confirmation of the artificiality of Faust's amazing "find" ... but, firmly puts to rest the idea that this precise geometric form could, in any way, be merely a geological "coincidence"; the still recognizable tetrahedral symmetry of this amazing ruin, despite the damaged sides -- obviously created to the exacting specifications of "a geometrically and mathematically precise Reuleaux Tetrahedron ..." -- is witness, once again, to the timelessness and universality of this ONE recurring Martian Theme--The overarching importance of "Hyperdimensional/Torsion Field Physics."* * *
Which brings us back to Curiosity ....Based on these striking, multiple examples of Martian "tetrahedral pyramids," and recalling (above) the observed "Martian penchant" for echoing, redundantly, this almost obsessive "tetrahedral meme" -- it suddenly occurred to me, looking at the NASA topographic map of Gale (below), that the eroding outlines of the much larger "mountain" in the middle of Gale Crater -- beneath that clearly tetrahedral apex -- could also be tracing out the (now) almost totally degraded millions-of-years-old form (below) ....Of a truly extraordinary-- "Reuleaux Triangle!"Remarkably ... NASA's projected "Gale landing ellipse" for Curiosity -- even in the earliest planning stages -- fell EXACTLY on the northern demarcation boundary of such a projected "Reuleaux Triangle" -- the line separating the potentially "buried remains of a MAJOR, ancient arcological Reuleaux form ..." occupying most of Gale, from the even deeper (bluer ...) northern crater floor.Projecting further ....
What if, the ancient "Gale arcology" we were proposing was NOT limited to the "~20-mile-diameter equilateral apex structure, still visible as Mt. Sharp's 'tetrahedral' summit," but was, instead ....
A full-blown--
Reuleaux Tetrahedron?
The possibilities stagger the imagination ....For one thing, if built to scale ... the pointed apex of this "Gale Reuleaux Tetrahedron" would extend far above the Martian surface (below) ... and out of the atmosphere itself!To the dizzying height of over--~50 miles!Now, before our critics go totally ballistic-- "But -- no such monstrous BUILDING could possibly even be constructed ... under all the laws of physics ... let alone, rise to such impossible heights!!"I would gently remind those folks that the largest shield volcano in the solar system -- "Olympus Mons" (below) -- rises over 15 miles above the Mars "mean datum." And, it is composed, layer upon layer(from millions of years of successive eruptions at "19.5" on Mars ... )of simple volcanic basalt -- which is NOT known as "the strongest of structural materials" ....A bona fide "Type II Civilization" would, undoubtedly, have both the exotic materials ... AND the exotic constructional techniques ... necessary to create artificial structures "impossible to even contemplate with OUR limited technology ...."Such a massive, "coded" Symbol -- a towering planetary Monument to the Fundamental Physics which made their Civilization possible -- would be well within their reach ....As would the sheer desire of such a "god-like Civilization" to "show off" -- by not only "rearranging entire solar systems" ... and creating "entire artificial planets" ... but, by erecting structures ON those planets that would be visible from literally thousands of miles away .... Even ... into space itself.* * *
In our on-going research into this extraordinary "ancient solar system civilization" scenario ... After a currently unknown epoch of "reigning supreme" -- both on Mars, and across the entire solar system -- for some currently unknown reason ... this extraordinary Type II Civilization apparently--Collapsed.Leaving behind a vast array of material artifacts -- not only all across the planet Mars ... but, from Mercury to Neptune ....
Which (on Mars) the current "NASA Curiosity Mission" is now in a unique position to both discover ... and to scientifically investigate--In an unprecedented fashion.In Part II of this "Curiosity Investigation," which we'll publish soon, we shall lay out some of the extraordinary evidence that Curiosity -- even at this early stage of its projected "two-year nominal mission" -- has now uncovered ... overwhelmingly demonstrating the reality of our "ancient Martian advanced civilization" hypothesis.
For, remember the old Apache saying--
"It only take ONE white crow ... to PROVE all crows aren't black!"
* * *
In the end, in seeking the plausibility of our "extraordinary Gale Arcology hypothesis" ... we must be driven solely by the forensic evidence that Curiosity herself is, even now, quietly collecting ....And, if our equally audacious political hypothesis -- regarding Curiosity's REAL Mission -- is also accurate--Will soon, for the first time, officially make public.
Stay tuned ....
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Spacecraft found on Mars – and it’s ours
Excerpt from skyandtelescope.com
By Kelly Beatty
On December 25, 2003, a British-built lander dropped to the Martian surface and disappeared without a trace. Now we know what happened to it. It's hard to overstate how valuable the main camera aboard the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has been. The craft's High-Resolution Imaging Science Experiment, or HiRISE, uses a 20-inch (0.5-m) f/24 telescope to record details on the Martian surface as small as 0.3 m (about 10 inches).
Primarily it's a powerful tool for studying Martian geology at the smallest scales, and NASA scientists sometimes use it to track the progress (and even the arrivals) of their rovers. Beagle 2 on Mars The clamshell-like Beagle 2 lander weighed just 30 kg, but it was well equipped to study Martian rocks and dust — and even to search for life. Beagle 2 consortium But the HiRISE team has also been on a years-long quest to find the remains of Beagle 2, a small lander that had hitchhiked to the Red Planet with the European Space Agency's Mars Express orbiter. It descended to the Martian surface on Christmas Day in 2003 and was never heard from again. Space aficionados have debated its fate ever since. Did parachute failure lead to a crash landing? Did strong surface winds flip the saucer-shaped craft upside down? Did the Martians take it hostage? Now, thanks to HiRISE, we know more of the story.
Images taken in February 2013 and June 2014 of the landing area in Isidis Planitia showed promising blips near the edge of each frame. A follow-up color view, acquired on December 15th and released three days ago, show a bright spot consistent with Beagle 2. The fully-opened lander would have been less than 2 m (6½ feet) across, so the craft is only barely resolved. Apparently the spacecraft made it to the surface intact, opened its clamshell cover, and had partially deployed its four petal-shaped solar-cell panels before something went awry. Beagle 2 seen from orbit by HiRISE
One encouraging clue is that the bright reflection changes position slightly from image to image, consistent with sunlight reflecting off different lander panels. Two other unusual spots a few hundred meters away appears to be the lander's parachute and part of the cover that served as a shield during the 5½-km-per-second atmospheric descent...
It's hard to overstate how valuable the main camera aboard the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has been. The craft's High-Resolution Imaging Science Experiment, or HiRISE, uses a 20-inch (0.5-m) f/24 telescope to record details on the Martian surface as small as 0.3 m (about 10 inches). Primarily it's a powerful tool for studying Martian geology at the smallest scales, and NASA scientists sometimes use it to track the progress (and even the arrivals) of their rovers.
Beagle 2 consortium
Now, thanks to HiRISE, we know more of the story. Images taken in February 2013 and June 2014 of the landing area in Isidis Planitia showed promising blips near the edge of each frame. A follow-up color view, acquired on December 15th and released three days ago, show a bright spot consistent with Beagle 2. The fully-opened lander would have been less than 2 m (6½ feet) across, so the craft is only barely resolved. Apparently the spacecraft made it to the surface intact, opened its clamshell cover, and had partially deployed its four petal-shaped solar-cell panels before something went awry.
NASA / JPL / Univ. of Arizona / Univ. of Leicester
The initial images didn't just show up. They'd been requested and searched by Michael Croon of Trier, Germany, who'd served on the Mars Express operations team. Croon had asked for specific camera targeting through a program called HiWish, through which anyone can submit suggestions for HiRISE images. Read more about this fascinating sleuthing story.
"Not knowing what happened to Beagle 2 remained a nagging worry," comments Rudolf Schmidt in an ESA press release about the find. "Understanding now that Beagle 2 made it all the way down to the surface is excellent news." Schmidt served as the Mars Express project manager at the time.
Built by a consortium of organizations, Beagle 2 was the United Kingdom's first interplanetary spacecraft. The 32-kg (73-pound) lander carried six instruments to study geochemical characteristics of the Martian surface and to test for the presence of life using assays of carbon isotopes. It was named for HMS Beagle, the ship that carried a crew of 73 (including Charles Darwin) on an epic voyage of discovery in 1831–36.
- See more at: http://www.skyandtelescope.com/astronomy-news/beagle-2-lander-found-on-mars-01192015/#sthash.5KSZ8V6W.dpuf