Experimental Mars probe may have exploded on impact

A space probe tasked with looking for signs of life on Mars has crash-landed and may have exploded, the European Space Agency has confirmed.

The ESA said images taken by a NASA Mars orbiter indicate the missing craft fell to the Red Planet's surface from a height of up to 2.5 miles.

The disc-shaped probe descended to Mars on Wednesday to test technologies for a rover that scientists hope to send to the surface of the planet in 2020.

The ESA has compared a high resolution photograph of Mars' surface taken after Schiaparelli's descent with one of the same area taken six months earlier.

The new picture shows two new features on the planet, one of which is believed to be the craft's parachute.

The other is thought to be wreckage and damage caused as it hit the ground at more than 186mph.

The images end two days of speculation following the probe's unexpected radio silence 50 seconds before the landing after a seven-year journey.

ExoMars flight operations director Michel Denis said: "I believe we have found where Schiaparelli landed.

"This didn't land softly as we would have liked to because the final phase of descent and landing did not function normally.

"So basically Schiaparelli has reached the ground with a velocity which was much higher than it should, so several hundreds of kilometres per hour, and is unfortunately then of course being, well, destroyed by the impact."

Scientists said the data Schiaparelli managed to send back before it went silent will still prove highly useful for the 2020 mission.

The ESA also said the probe's mother ship was successfully placed into orbit on Wednesday and will begin analysing the Martian atmosphere in search for evidence of life.

The crash-landing has confirmed how hard it would be to put a spacecraft on the surface of the Red Planet.

Europe's Eagle 2 probe reached the surface in 2003 but failed to deploy properly.

Only NASA has repeatedly succeeded in landing several robotic vehicles on Mars.