Must be the crater - The Mars probe that was supposed to land on the red planet this past Christmas day is still not phoning home.
Ed Johnson of the AP reports that a faulty clock and bad weather have been discounted as possible reasons for the silence.
Instead scientists are considering that the probe may have fallen into a crater and can't get a signal out of the crater.
Yahoo!® News has Johnson's report:
It is possible — although unlikely — that the Beagle may be unable to communicate because it landed inside, chief Beagle scientist Colin Pillinger said at a news conference."This would be an incredibly unlucky situation," Pillinger said.
Several attempts to contact the Beagle 2 so far have failed five days after it was to descend to Mars. NASA's Mars Odyssey orbiter has passed four times over the spot where scientists hope Beagle landed, without picking up a signal.
Other theories include a crash that damaged the 143-pound Mars probe, or bad software that runs the Beagle's clock.
The probe hasn't been given up for loss yet, as more attempts will be made over the coming week.
One possible attempt to locate the probe will be the use of Stanford University's radio telescope. The telescope could be used to,
"...scan the planet's surface for low levels of radiation emitted by the probe."
Of course, that news may upset some space environmentalists. The idea that a probe is emitting radiation probably won't be welcome. Of course that's probably because some space environmentalists don't have a clue that they emit radiation too.
In a related story, the odds of finding a Martian have been slashed from 500-to-1 all the way down to 100-to-1 with the landing of the Beagle probe. This bit of news comes from Ananova™.
