This artist's concept obtained from U.S. space agency NASA depicts select planetary discoveries made to date by NASA's Kepler space telescope. (Photo: Xinhua/NASA)
A high-resolution image taken by a NASA Mars orbiter indicated that a shallow crater was excavated when the European Space Agency's (ESA) ill-fated Schiaparelli test lander hit the surface of the Red Planet last week, the U.S. space agency said Thursday.
Schiaparelli was part of the ESA's ExoMars 2016 mission, which placed the Trace Gas Orbiter into orbit around Mars on Oct. 19. Contact with the probe was lost shortly before its expected touchdown on the same day.
Two days later, a low-resolution image taken by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter showed "a fuzzy dark patch" at the landing site, which was interpreted as arising from the lander's impact and also a possible hint its fuel tanks may have exploded.
An Oct. 25 observation using the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter showed that Schiaparelli created a dark, roughly circular crater about 2.4 meters in diameter and 0.5 meters deep.
NASA said it's consistent with the crater made by a 300-kilogram object impacting into dry soil at a speed of more than 300 kilometers per hour.
Interpreting the new image, the ESA said in a statement it is possible the lander's fuel tanks exploded preferentially in one direction upon impact, throwing debris from the planet's surface in the direction of the blast.
The new image also revealed two other nearby impact locations. According to NASA, some 1.4 kilometers east of the lander impact site, an object with several bright spots surrounded by darkened ground is likely the heat shield.
And about 1.4 kilometers south of Schiaparelli, two features side-by-side are interpreted as the spacecraft's parachute and the back shell to which the parachute was attached, it added.
