Photos show European Mars probe may have exploded

Scientists say orbiter will continue main part of mission.

BERLIN — Europe’s experimental Mars probe hit the right spot — but at the wrong speed — and may have ended up in a fiery ball of rocket fuel when it struck the surface, scientists said Friday.

Pictures taken by a NASA satellite show a black spot in the area where the Schiaparelli lander was meant to touch down Wednesday, the European Space Agency said. The images end two days of speculation after the probe unexpectedly fell silent less than a minute before the planned landing.

The agency estimated that Schiaparelli dropped from a height of up to 2.4 miles and struck the surface at a speed of more than 180 mph.

It said the large disturbance captured in the NASA photographs may have been caused by the probe’s steep crash-landing, which would have sprayed matter around like a blast site on Earth.

“It is also possible that the lander exploded on impact, as its thruster propellant tanks were likely still full,” the agency said.

Schiaparelli was designed to test technology for a more ambitious European Mars landing in 2020. The European Space Agency said the probe’s mother ship was successfully placed into orbit Wednesday and will soon begin analyzing the Martian atmosphere as it searches for evidence of life.

“In my heart, of course I’m sad that we couldn’t land softly on the surface of Mars,” said ESA chief Jan Woerner. “But the main part of the mission is the science that will be done by the orbiter.”

Woerner said engineers received a wealth of data from the lander before the crash that will prove valuable for the next attempt in four years’ time. He described the mission as “a 96 percent success.”

Still, the crash-landing was a painful reminder of how hard it is to put a spacecraft on the surface of the red planet.

Its resting place was photographed by NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, which also spotted Europe’s last ill-fated mission to the surface of the planet. The Beagle 2 probe landed on Mars in 2003 but failed to deploy its solar panels properly, preventing it from functioning.

There have only been seven successful robotic landings on Mars, all by NASA. The last landing was in 2012, when the Curiosity rover touched down in a Martian crater.

Landing on Mars is notoriously difficult because of the planet’s thin, dusty atmosphere. Inbound spacecraft hit the atmosphere at 12,000 mph and have only minutes to slow down and land.

With the loss of Schiaparelli, only two spacecraft are currently roaming the Martian surface — Curiosity and Opportunity, which landed in 2004.

GREGORIO BORGIA M/ AP Italian Space Agency President Roberto Battiston talks in front of a rendering of the Schiaparelli Space Module and of the planet Mars displayed on a movie screen Friday. Scientists said photos showed a black spot in the area where the lander was...