Images taken by a NASA Mars orbiter indicate that Europe's ill-fated Mars lander left a small crater on the Red Planet's surface, backing up scientists' theory that the craft hit the ground at high speed. The disc-shaped, 577-kg (1,272 lb) Schiaparelli probe, part of the Russian-European ExoMars programme to search for evidence of life on Mars, was destroyed last week when its thrusters stopped firing too soon during its descent to the surface. Scientists believe that the Schiaparelli lander plummeted to the ground from a height of 2 to 4 km (1.2 to 2.5 miles), hitting the ground at more than 300 km/h instead of touching down softly as it was supposed to.
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