Mars on the Horizon: the red planet in black and white

To the intense relief of NASA, the US robot, Spirit, landed safely on Mars yesterday morning and began to transmit black and white pictures of the Martian landscape to scientists at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory at Pasadena in California.

During a 10-week period in 1999 all four Nasa probes perished as they reached the planet.

NASA’s Mr Ed Weiler said: “It’s an incredibly difficult place to land. Some have called it the death planet for good reason.”

The Spirit exploration rover is designed to operate for up to 90 days, examining geology to build up a picture of the planet’s watery past. After a week of scientific checks and engineering tests, Spirit is due to move off its landing pad to start looking for evidence of ancient seas – salts, gypsum and other telltale sediments.

Meanwhile, British researchers are still hoping to make contact with their probe, Beagle-2, which has been missing since it began its descent to Mars on Christmas Day.

NASA celebrates successful landing on Mars: page 7