BRITAIN’S Beagle 2 might have vanished into the Martian sunset, but discoveries made by American probes to the Red Planet were named yesterday as the most important scientific breakthroughs of the year.

New evidence that Mars was once warm, wet and perhaps capable of supporting life has been chosen by the journal Science as the most significant achievement of 2004.

The most critical finds were made by Nasa’s pair of mobile rovers, Spirit and Opportunity, which landed on the planet in January, just weeks after Beagle 2 was lost.

Other important work was accomplished by the British probe’s mother ship, the European Space Agency’s Mars Express, which identified more evidence from orbit for the Red Planet’s watery past.

Put together, the discoveries have confirmed beyond reasonable doubt a theory that has long been considered one of the most seductive in science: that billions of years ago, pools of liquid water were present on Mars for long enough to allow the possibility of life.

While the ancient Martian environment would have been harsh, and the water salty and acidic, microbes live in similar extreme conditions on Earth.

Salty residues apparently laid down by water have also been detected by the Omega spectrometer instrument aboard Mars Express.

Spirit, Opportunity and Mars Express have not been able to answer the burning question that remains: whether the planet actually did once harbour life. They were not equipped with the correct instruments for detecting its signatures.

Had Beagle 2 made it to Mars, it is just possible that the breakthrough would have been greater still: it carried two instruments that might have revealed the past presence of living organisms. Second place on the Science list of the year’s important breakthroughs went to the discovery of Homo floresiensis, the diminutive cousin of modern humans likened to J.R.R. Tolkien’s hobbits.

The fossils, which were found on the Indonesian island of Flores, have been dated to just 18,000 years ago, suggesting that they could have interacted with modern humans.

Other important breakthroughs highlighted by Science include the announcement of the first cloned human embryos, created by a team from South Korea.

The journal’s annual “Breakdown of the Year” — the biggest setback for science — was the rift between researchers and governments in the United States and continental Europe. In the US, scientists disagreed with President Bush on subjects such as global warming and stem cell research, while there were strident protests against budget cuts in France and Italy.

It also identified a number of areas to watch for in 2005, when more significant breakthroughs are expected. These include new obesity drugs, more than 100 of which are being researched worldwide and some of which are likely to be licensed next year.

TOP TEN BREAKTHROUGHS

1 Water on Mars: evidence of salty, acidic water that could once have supported life discovered by Nasa rovers. Europe’s Mars Express orbiter also found traces of water

2 Smallest humans: fossils of Homo floresiensis, a new diminutive species of human relative found in Indonesia

3 Human cloning: South Korean scientists created first cloned human embryo

4 Condensates: scientists greatly increased their understanding of condensates — ultra-cold gases that display the principles of quantum mechanics particularly well

5 Hidden genome treasures: “Junk DNA” — the large stretches of DNA that do not code for proteins — may be much more important than thought

6 A pulsar pair: first known pair of pulsars — spinning neutron stars that shoot out jets of radiation — found, shedding light on Einstein’s general theory of relativity

7 Biodiversity decline: large studies revealed fresh evidence of a decline among amphibians, butterflies, plants and birds

8 Water structure: new results on structure and chemical behaviour of water could reshape fields from chemistry to atmospheric sciences

9 Medicines for the poor: public-private partnerships brought important advances against diseases endemic in developing countries

10 Genes in a drop of water: scientists discovered way of identifying life forms much too small to be seen with the naked eye

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