A sophisticated analysis of grainy images from a Nasa spacecraft has convinced the Beagle 2 team that the lander met its end in a small crater, into which it touched down in the early hours of Christmas Day 2003 with little chance of survival.

The pictures from Mars Global Surveyor, which have been pored over by an expert who once interpreted spy satellite images for the RAF, show an impact point in the crater and several objects that appear to be Beagle 2’s protective gas bags and, perhaps, the lander itself.

They suggest that the probe was lost because of cruel luck as it touched down in one of the worst possible places for a soft and successful landing. Rather than dropping to the surface on a flat plain, it appears to have first struck the downslope of a small crater about 18.5m (60ft) in diameter, before crashing into its opposite wall, bouncing several times around the rim and eventually coming to rest at the bottom. Even if the gas bags that were meant to cushion its impact were fully inflated, and there is some evidence that they were not, their design would not have allowed them to protect the probe properly under these unlikely circumstances.

“It’s a bit like hitting the side of the pocket in snooker,” said Professor Colin Pillinger, of the Open University, who led the mission. “The plan was for it to bounce along a flat surface, but instead it seems to have hit the wall of the crater and that messed up the bounce sequence, damaging the lander. If this is all true we were very unlucky. A sideswipe like this was just what we didn’t want.”

The fate of Beagle 2 has been pieced together from two images taken in February and April last year, each of which showed anomalous dark patches inside a small crater inside the ellipse where the probe is known to have landed. Guy Rennie, of Virtual Analytics, has analysed the pictures to make sense of the grainy blotches. One dark patch stands out exceptionally clearly, and almost certainly shows the disturbance of Beagle 2 ’s first bounce to the ground.

Mr Rennie said that the evidence points firmly towards the crater as Beagle 2’s final resting place. “There are objects in the crater, and there are not numerous craters all with objects inside them,” he said.

“These are features that are very, very unusual and are not seen anywhere else. When you add to that the features that look like bags and a lander, then it’s very, very compelling evidence. If we’re right, this was terrible luck.”

The £50 million probe was carried to Mars by the European Space Agency’s Mars Express orbiter, and was last seen two years ago yesterday. After it landed, no radio signal was received and it was given up.

Explore UK News

• Science News

• Crime News

• Education News

• Health News

• Scotland News

Times Recommends

• Postman Pat moved to a high-tech sorting office
• Saatchi’s old favourites
• New teaching style gives pupils wake-up call