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OUT OF THIS WORLD | Science Pics of the Week - a weekly collection of the best images from science, space and beyond

New Mars lander appears to have crashed, possibly exploded


Scott Sutherland
Meteorologist/Science Writer

Friday, October 21, 2016, 5:23 PM - The latest Mars landing attempt appears to have ended in a spectacular crash and Canadian astronomers may have traced the origin of Rosetta's comet. It's Science Pics of the Week!

Did Schiaparelli make an explosive impact on Mars?

The latest imagery from Mars orbit has spied the landing zone of the Schiaparelli lander, and the ESA is now saying that it appears as though the lander crashed on its attempt at a Wednesday touchdown on the Red Planet.

In a statement, issued on Friday, the agency said that, based on all the information they've obtained so far, the lander's rockets cut out long before they were supposed to, and that it likely hit the surface of Mars travelling at more than 300 kilometres per hour.


Images taken by the Context Camera (CTX) on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, comparing Schiaparelli's landing zone on May 29, 2016 and Oct. 20, 2016, appear to show the impact of the lander - the dark smudge at the top of the magnified inset - and the parachute - the bright dot towards the bottom of the magnified inset.

According to the ESA:

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 relatively large size of the feature would then arise from disturbed surface material. It is also possible that the lander exploded on impact, as its thruster propellant tanks were likely still full. These preliminary interpretations will be refined following further analysis.

Despite this disappointing loss of Schiaparelli, the Trace Gas Orbiter is still operating, and given the data the lander managed to send back before contact was lost, the ESA is still counting the mission as a success.

Having the weather station and science instruments of Schiaparelli take readings on the surface was a bonus, but it's true part of the mission was to test the entry, descent and landing, which it most certainly did.

Stay tuned for further imagining, by MRO's HiRISE camera, which takes pictures at much higher resolution. These images should be out next week.

Rosetta Comet a 'newcomer' to this part of space

Apparently, Comet 67P went through quite the journey before we sent our robot emissaries to investigate it. Based on a new study out of Western University's Department of Physics & Astronomy and Centre for Planetary Science & Space Exploration (CPSX) the comet is a fairly recent visitor to this part of the solar system.

When the ESA's Rosetta spacecraft arrived at Comet 67P/Churymov-Gerasimenko back in 2014, scientists had hoped that it would shed some light on how Earth got its abundant water supply. Instead, the water trapped in the comet was unlike anything we see here, and a team of Western University astronomers may have just figured out why.

Based on computer simulations of the comet's orbit, and how the giant planets of the solar system would have affected its path, postdoc scholar Mattia Galiazzo and Western CPSX solar system expert Paul Wiegert determined that Comet 67P very likely originated from well beyond Pluto, in a region of the solar system in the outer Kuiper Belt known as the scattering disk.

According to Galiazzo and Wiegert's study, comet 67P may have only been in the inner solar system for about 10,000 years now, and from its origins, it may be composed of "primordial material," from the very beginning of our solar system.

Sources: ESA | NASAWestern University

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