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| Image credit: Beagle 2 |
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| Beagle 2 Report Released |
| Aug 25, 2004 - The UK-built Beagle 2 lander should have been on the surface of Mars, communicating with Earth for months now. But for some reason, shortly after it entered the Martian atmosphere, the small lander went silent, and it hasn't been heard from since. Several inquiries have already been held, but now the mission operations team has released its own report to try and explain what could have gone wrong. The report provides a thorough list of ways the lander could have failed mechanically, but suggests that it was mostly likely that it failed during the entry, descent, and landing phase; probably because the atmosphere was less dense than the designers were expecting. (Full Story) |
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| Image credit: ESO |
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| Smallest Extrasolar Planet Found |
| Aug 25, 2004 - A team of European astronomers have used the European Southern Observatory's HARPS Instrument to find the smallest extrasolar planet ever discovered; it's believed to be only 14 times the mass of the Earth. The planet orbits a star called mu Arae every 9.5 days, which is located 50 light-years away in the southern constellation of the Altar. A planet this size lies right at the boundary between rocky planets and gas giants. But since it's so close to its parent star, it's probably rocky, with a relatively small atmosphere, so it would be classified as a "super Earth". (Full Story) |
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