Professor Mark Sims on the discovery that Beagle 2 made it to the surface

A powerful Proton booster launched at 0931:42 GMT Monday with the first part of a multibillion-dollar Mars mission led by the European Space Agency. The Mars orbiter and lander will search for signs of methane on the red planet, and demonstrate technologies to be used on a future European Mars rover.

NASA’s Curiosity rover on Mars is currently on the lower slopes of Mount Sharp in a region covered in sandstone where it has just drilled its fifth prospecting hole. Two weeks ago, still in the same general vicinity, Curiosity took a pair of long-range scenic images toward higher regions of the mountain — beautiful views worthy of a postcard home.

A huge deposit of porous rock straddling the Martian equator likely formed as a result of explosive volcanoes erupting three billion years ago that were powered by climate-changing volatile gases trapped in the red planet’s interior