Beagle 2 in HiRISE, Possible Targets Options

[kenny]

Alex is correct. That is a smaller rock beside House Rock, just to the south of it.

http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/gallery/images...-116-18653.html

Kenny

[Ames]

Not sure about this one but it looks different to the surrounding features.
Either casting a long shadow or disturbed ground exposing dark subsurface.

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/154/3928461...f5a902f21_o.jpg


There are just sooo many rocks that could be airbags, soo many faint craters that look like a parachute.
I am just trying to find anything disturbed, dark, like the splat that oppy's backshell made.

[Guest_Sunspot_*]

That feature looks quite interesting actually. Is it a 100% crop? Is it my imagination or are the faint "rays" coming from it?

[Ames]

Yes 100%

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/77/392880515_de61f9a3d4_o.jpg

Red dot marks the spot

From Emily's blog;

http://planetary.org/blog/article/00000858/

[djellison]

Looks like a shadow behind an unusual shape rock. An impact splat would be larger than that (i.e. the best B2 team estimate is approx the crater size I show in my simulation ) - but it's another 'hm - interrsting' target.

A chute will always be very very obvious. The MPF chute is so very obvious nearly 10 years after landing. The MER chutes were very very easy to find - the B2 parachute if it deployed will be similarly obvious - despite being a much smaller lander, it used a similar sized chute ( because it had no retro rockets ) -

Attached is the 'all my hardware' playground for the 3d sims. It's all been seen before - but this shot ( at 33cm/pixel) shows the B2 stuff top left as seen here - then three sets of 'chute - backshell and heatsheild on the right which, from left to right, are Viking, Pathfinder and MER.

B2's chute design was a different shape to the JPL vehicles - but it's a similar size.

The three scenarios I'm interested in are...

1) Burnt up on entry due to unstable aerodynamic design. This is actually what I think is most likely given that the B2 capsule was a significant departure from the 'heritage' of Viking and MPL and actually used the Huygens heatshield shape which makes no sense imho - 1.5bar N2 compared to .05 bar CO2 - very different challenges. If this happened - we'll find nothing in HiRISE ( for a comparison - have we found any MER cruise stage... no )

2) Didn't burn up - but was dead on arrival and simply had a lithobraking impact that would produced a crater as simulated and documented in the B2 report. This would be very obvious in HiRISE imagery imho - MGS has shown us that recent craters are fairly obvious - so HiRISE would see this very clearly - but I would expect this to be at the eastern end of the ellipse if not beyond ( I want to ask the B2 team about this actually - what scenario that ellipse is for ) as there would be no deceleration from drogue or main chutes.

3) Survived entry and then deployed the drogue and the main chute. If we're going to find ANYTHING else - this HAS to have happened and so personally - before considering candidate hardware that isn't a crater - I want to see a chute first because it's a prereq of seing a heatshield (which deployed after the main chute) - a lander or any airbags on the surface.

This is the first sensible thing to search for...
http://www.planetary.org/image/hirise_path...crop_200pct.jpg
(ignoring the backshell)

Doug

Attached thumbnail(s)

 

[Guest_Sunspot_*]

OK heres your "spot" resized up by 500%

How many of you have gone through the whole HiRISE image?

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[Ames]

Yep, propbably just a rock

This one is a little different

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/157/3929680...fde0bc79f_o.jpg

Sunspot, I have been over the whole of PSP_002136_1920_RED.jp2 and am running out of initial targets. Beagle2 is probably not in this set of data. I think this is all just a bit of practice for when we get some swathes from downrange a lttle.

[JTN]

FWIW, I've Zoomified one of the Beagle 2 ellipse HiRISE images. (I was unable to convert the larger one successfully, for some reason, even if I split it up.)

Although given that the Zoomifyer output takes up only 50-60% of the space of the original JP2 even though it's multiply redundant, I'm not sure how much use it is for looking for features at the limit of resolution...

[Guest_Sunspot_*]

Are there plans to take more images of the landing site?

[Guest_AlexBlackwell_*]

I don't know if this press release was mentioned but in case it wasn't:

Where is Beagle 2? The search continues
Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council
Swindon, U.K.
16 February 2007

[djellison]

Emily pointed out that the Isidis image for Osiris cross-calib just caught the end of the ellipse so I have added it to 'the mix', presented here at 30m/pixel.

Doug

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[FIN Mars]

Beagle 2 Back Shell and Parachute?



Probably not, but still...

[djellison]

Which image and what coords is that from? I woudl concur - very very unlikely, that backshell feature is too large, by about 2x.

Doug

[FIN Mars]

Which image and what coords is that from? I woudl concur - very very unlikely, that backshell feature is too large, by about 2x.

Doug

at the Emily Lakdawalla's website it is picture> Top row, right (20 MB)
http://www.planetary.org/blog/article/00000858/

Object is very close down side and near left side of the picture. Crater nearby object should be find relatively easy.

Sorry my english skills, hopely you undestood something...

do you know when we get more HiRiSe pictures of the landing side?

[Guest_Sunspot_*]

Beagle 2 may have tumbled to a fiery doom

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg2002...fiery-doom.html