Mars photo shows crashed European spacecraft

Well, it looks like Mars has a new crater thanks to a European spacecraft that crash-landed on the red planet this week.

According to a newly released photo taken by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter in Martian orbit, European Space Agency's (ESA) Schiaparelli lander appears to have hurtled into the red planet during its bid to become the first European spacecraft to softly land and operate on the world.

The new images show a dark spot in the place where the Schiaparelli was expected to land along with a lighter spot thought to be the spacecraft's parachute.

"Estimates are that Schiaparelli dropped from a height of between 2 and 4 kilometres, therefore impacting at a considerable speed, greater than 300 km/h," the ESA said in a statement.

The ESA also speculates that the lander may have exploded on impact if its tanks full of fuel were still full after its thrusters cut off prematurely.

Via Giphy

Scientists need more information before they know exactly what happened to the lander, but the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter should be able to provide new, high-resolution images that may be able to fill in the gaps next week.

"Since the module’s descent trajectory was observed from three different locations, the teams are confident that they will be able to reconstruct the chain of events with great accuracy," the ESA said. "The exact mode of anomaly onboard Schiaparelli is still under investigation."

ESA mission controllers lost contact with the lander about 50 seconds before it was expected to touch down on Mars Wednesday.

Mission managers know that the spacecraft's parachute and heat shield seemed to deploy, but they lost contact just before the lander's thrusters were scheduled to have fired to slow its landing.

Original image has been replaced. Credit: Mashable

The Schiaparelli was designed as part of the ESA's joint ExoMars mission with Russia, launched to help try to find signs of life on the red planet.

And in spite of the Schiaparelli's failed landing, the mission, in many ways, has already been a success.

Schiaparelli went to Mars with ExoMars' Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO), a probe that successfully made it into orbit around the planet Wednesday. The TGO is actually the science heavyweight of the mission, unlike the Schiaparelli, which was an experimental technology demonstration to help scientists land a future ExoMars rover on Mars by around 2020.

Thanks to Schiaparelli, the ESA now has more information about how best to land a spacecraft on Mars that should help with planning as it moves toward launching that life-hunting rover years down the road.

While about a dozen lander and rover missions have been launched to Mars, only seven NASA-operated missions have been totally successful.