Silence From Beagle 2 - Upto date, silence, no signal has been detected from Mars to indicate that the UK. built Beagle 2 lander has landed on the planets surface. The US Orbiter Mars Odyssey has flown over the assumed landing zone, a large lowland basin called Isidis Planitia but heard no transmission. Help has been given by the giant radio telescope at Jodrell Bank and after listening to the planet for hours, it also, failed to make contact. Odyssey and Jodrell Bank will continue to sweep the planet in the coming days and other radio telescopes, including one at Stanford in California and Westerbork in the Netherlands have offered help in the search.

If Beagle 2 has reached the planet safely, it will be transmitting at a frequency of 401.56 Mhz. The team leader, Professor Colin Pillinger, said he had faith Beagle 2 had landed safely and refuses to give up hope just yet. The Mars Express (Beagle 2's mothership) which carried the Beagle 2 into space should be in a position to try and make contact on the 4th January,2004. The Mars Express and Beagle 2 were designed to talk to each other and this may be our best hope. Beagle 2 was designed to survive on it's automatic systems for weeks, maybe months. If it has landed successfully and opened up, it will be recharging it's batteries but if it is unable to recharge it's batteries then once they are used up, that will be it. According to scientists there are a number of possible explanations for Beagle's failure.

It could have landed off course, in an area where communication is difficult, if not impossible. The lander's antenna is blocked from reaching Mars Odyssey or the ground-based telescopes. There was some catastrophic failure during the landing and Beagle 2 fell into a crevasse. There could be a problem with the clock which switches Beagle 2 transmitters on and off, so we could be listening at the wrong time. Odyssey was temporarily shut down by radiation from a massive solar flare in October and Nasa scientists are checking to make sure nothing is wrong with Odyssey.

The total cost of Beagle 2 was between $35 million and $40 million. If all else fails, Mars Express has a powerful camera system onboard, which could in early January search the planet for signs of Beagle 2's parachutes and airbags. So there is still hope yet.

The Curse Of Mars - It now looks likely that Beagle 2 has become another statistic for the curse of Mars. It is know, that is a long and difficult journey to the red planet and the success of landing is even more difficult. To date, nearly two-thirds of all robotic missions to Mars have been lost.

Missions Launched To Date = 34

Successes = 12

Failure = 19

In Transit = 3

Landings Attempted To Date = 12

Successes = 3

Failures = 9

Nasa senior research scientist David Crisp recalls how a half decade of his life's work disappeared in a instant when the Mars Polar Lander crashed into the Red Planet in 1999 and has never been heard from again. A math mix-up doomed the Mars Climate Orbiter as it entered the planets orbit. The Mars Polar Lander's engines cut off early and investigators believe, when its computer wrongly determined its landing legs had touched down.

Five years later, and Crisp is preparing for the nerve-wracking moment next month when his next project 2 - $800 rovers are due to land on Mars. They are due to bounce 4 stories in the air and roll to a stop about a mile away, if all goes well. A lot is riding on this latest attempt and Nasa downplay suggestions that the stakes are higher than normal. This is the biggest mission since the last Nasa failure, the loss of the Columbia and the 7 astronauts onboard on the 1st February,2003. This accident was blamed on mistakes that according to insiders seem to be eerily similar to those made during the last, lost Mars missions. If this latest missions goes wrong Nasa will loose a lot of credibility.

Wisconsin UFO Sighting - A UFO has been spotted on Highway 48 in Wisconsin and travelling all along the highway down to what is know as the "Bible Camp." Ted Wistrom and Chet Newman who saw the UFO said "It crossed over the highway in front of us and came down towards a field and hovered about 50 foot or 100 foot above the ground. It was silent, about 20 foot long and moved at about 30mph" Other people on the highway in front and behind them slowed down to watch it. Wistrom said "It had what looked like tubes sticking out of the bottom of the craft, that were tilted towards the ground, like that's what was holding it up. On the back of the craft it had 4 rectangular lights. When the UFO was in motion, all the lights were orange, but when in a hovering mode, the centre light turned blue and the centre right one turned white and blinked, Then it disappeared."

Latest Update On Beagle 2 - Disaster! - If the current theory is correct, it looks as if Beagle 2 is lost. Scientists have only just discovered a one kilometre wide crater, which could be hundreds of metres deep, right at the centre of the target area on Isidis Planitia (Right) where the Beagle was due to land. Nasa orbiter, Mars Global Surveyor has just revealed close-up pictures taken of the site minutes after the British probe should have landed. This site was chosen because it was a flat, low lying basin and this would minimise natural hazards. But they now agree that no area is without risk and craters are scattered all across the planet Mars. If Beagle 2 is in the crater, there would be a large number of rocks and boulders which could be preventing Beagle 2 opening and unfolding its solar panels. They could have easily pierced the gas bags when it bounced on the surface. If it was perched at a steep angle on the crater wall, this would also stop it functioning properly. If it had landed deep inside the crater then vital sunlight needed for power would be unable to reach it. Now Mission controllers are pinning their hopes on the mother ship, Mars Express. It should be making contact after it starts operating on January 4th. Beagle 2 by then will have gone into an emergency mode which causes it to transmit signals more frequently. Science Minister Lord Sainsbury has hinted that even if Beagle 2 is lost, the Government would back a future Beagle 3.

Successful Landing For Nasa On Mars- The first of the two probes by Nasa, Spirit has successfully landed on Mars. It has already beamed back spectacular photos of the red planet, black and white, colour and even 3D. American scientists are now preparing its rover vehicle to search the landing area for ancient signs of water, which this mission is dedicated to. The craft landed at Gusev Crater, a massive basin the size of Connecticut, on Saturday night. Scientists believe this might once have been a giant lake bed fed by a long deep Martian river. The landing site is an area free of large boulders (Why didn't the Beagle 2 land here then?) It has been scoured clean by Martian winds of thick accumulations of dust and this makes it easier for the rover to manoeuvre. Over 60 images of its landing zone were taken by Spirit and were relayed back to Earth by the passing Odyssey Orbiter. The last attempt to land on Mars, in 1999 failed due to a software problem, which ended up with the Polar lander crashing into the ground. The first picture is of the space probe Spirit. The second picture is the landing site where Beagle 2 should have touched down. It is one of these craters where they now think that Beagle 2 might have landed.

International Space Station - Has It Sprung A Leak? The International Space Station which at the moment is home to a 2-man Russian/American crew is loosing cabin pressure the U.S. Space Agency has acknowledged. U.S. mission commander Michael Foale and Russian flight engineer Alexander Kaleri have spent time inspecting valves in both the US and Russian components of the station and found nothing unusual. Kaleri also inspected the windows in the Russian-made Zvezda service module and a docking compartment. He is to report his findings to Russian space experts later, in his report. The statement issued by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration read "The decay, which is currently measured at a rate of less than 0.04 pounds per square inch a day, is having no impact on station operations and the crew is in no danger."

The leak came to the attentions of mission control on December 29th. Foale who is 46 and Kaleri, 47 arrived onboard the I.S.S. last October. They are planning to spend a total of nearly 200 days, studying microgravity environment in low-Earth orbit and preparing for this year's arrival of the cargo ship Jules Verne, built by the European Space Agency. This will be making its maiden voyage to the space station. The crew is scheduled to receive a Russian re-supply mission later this month. This is the second incident to occur. In late November the astronauts reported a loud noise being heard, and they were worried that they might have been hit by space debris, but after an intensive examination of the station no evidence was found, and no change in air pressure was noticed. Could this latest incident be related to this strange bang? According to Nasa, the drop in air pressure has not stopped the research activities onboard the spacecraft. Foale has participated in a Russian medical experiment designed to study changes in the human body during space flight, and Foale has done some work in preparation for future spacewalks.

Huddersfield UFO - Malcolm Stapp (74) of Salendine Nook saw a couple of flying saucers and couldn't believe his eyes. He was just on his way to bed when he saw a bright light in the sky. It was stationary over Huddersfield for at least 15 minutes. At one point another appeared travelling north and going very fast, he said. It was definitely flying faster than any jets that fly over here. He was certain it wasn't a helicopter or plane. Both UFO's were globular with lots of lights on them. He said he tried to look at the stationary one through binoculars, but it was just a blur of intense lights. He watched it for 15 minutes and it was still there when he went to bed. PC. Dave McSweeney of Huddersfield Police said no more reports of UFO's were received in the early hours.

Next Stop Mars - After 30 years since man first left earths boundaries and set foot on another planet, the U.S. is again setting it's sights on further space exploration. President G. W. Bush next week will announce new U.S. space objectives. These are to include manned lunar missions by around 2015 using the moon as a pit stop. It is setting it's sights on the lunar landscape as a training base and springboard for manned flights to mars and beyond. The distance between Earth and the Moons is 400,000 Kilometres (250,000 miles), but Rick Tomlinson's founder of the private Space Frontier Foundation in California said the U.S. Government alone could not sustain a Space programme of that magnitude. He says we should call for European and Russian participation. Mr.Tomlinson said "It is very important that we get Nasa back to exploring out of the Earth's Orbit. We need to create a community on the Moon. We need a strong infrastructure, with transportation between Earth and Moon, this will make it easier to go to Mars. We need a permanent lunar base." China has also got it's sights on the Moon. They are looking to place an unmanned satellite in orbit around the moon by 2007. It launched it's Shenshu V.(Divine Vessel) satellite, which orbited the earth 14 times in 21 hours. They are looking at placing 10 satellites in orbit in 2004. Nasa said plans for retiring the ageing space shuttle fleet is by 2010 and to scale back U.S. involvement in the International Space Station after it is completed in 2013. Nasa plans to develop an orbital space plane to take crews and cargo to the I.S.S. and hope to have a prototype ready by 2008. This could later be adapted for longer voyages to the Moon and Mars.

Photo Of UFO - A UFO seen in Rosari, Argentina at about 1 am. on Saturday 27th was captured by a witness on a digital camera. Sightings have also been seen of a similar craft in the nearby city of Victoria.

Fireballs Seen In The Sky In Spain - Hundreds of witnesses in Spain have seen balls of fire in the sky. Authorities there are searching for an estimated 50 tons of material from a meteorite, which broke up after colliding with the Earth. A local official left his house at around 12 minutes to 6 and heard a big explosion. He said it was like an earth tremor and he saw a white cloud of smoke form around a nearby mountain. This took a long time to disperse. Another witness said it was like an explosion, windows shattered and people were frightened. Astrophysicist Jose Maria Quinana said it must have weighted at least 50 to 100 tons, but the odd thing is we had no warning whatsoever.