[Tuesday, December 02, 2003] This image shows a plethora of dark streaks created during the recent southern spring by dust devils as they passed over and around an old, nearly filled, meteor impact crater.

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[Tuesday, December 02, 2003] NASA'S robotic Mars geologist, Spirit, embodying America's enthusiasm for exploration, must run a grueling gantlet of challenges before it can start examining Mars. Spirit's twin Mars Exploration Rover, Opportunity, also faces tough Martian challenges.

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[Tuesday, December 02, 2003] This two-frame mosaic of THEMIS VIS images shows the floor of a crater that was filled by material of unknown origin. That material is now being eroded in a manner that is quite enigmatic.

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[Wednesday, December 03, 2003] This picture was taken on 1 December 2003 from ESA's Mars Express spacecraft and shows Mars as seen from a distance of about 5.5 million kilometres.

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[Wednesday, December 03, 2003] The larger circular feature was once a meteor crater. It was filled with sediment, then buried beneath younger rocks. The smaller circular feature is a younger impact crater that formed in the surface above the rocks that buried the large crater.

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[Wednesday, December 03, 2003] The scene spans over 190 km of the region known as Nili Fossae in NE Syrtis Major. Note how the orange hues tend to occur on upland terrain while the gray hues are mostly on the lowlands.

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[Wednesday, December 03, 2003] A European Space Agency (ESA) mission that will arrive at Mars this month has American participants, and Europeans are team members for two NASA spacecraft that will reach Mars in January.

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[Thursday, December 04, 2003] This image shows patterned ground, arranged in the form of polygons, on the plains associated with ejecta from the Lyot impact crater. On Earth, polygon patterns like this are created in arctic and antarctic regions where there is ice in the ground.

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[Monday, December 08, 2003] Mars may be going through a period of climate change, new findings from NASA's Mars Odyssey orbiter suggest.

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[Tuesday, December 09, 2003] This image shows wind-eroded material, possibly sedimentary rock, in the Lycus Sulci region west of Olympus Mons. The darker surfaces and the dark-toned ripples on those surfaces indicate there may be windblown sand present in these areas.

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[Wednesday, December 10, 2003] After no sucess in communicating with its Mars-bound spacecraft "Nozomi", JAXA has decided not to try and put Nozomi into orbit around Mars and has formally abandoned the mission.

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[Wednesday, December 10, 2003] This picture shows eroded layered bedrock outcrops in the upper walls of one of the depressions in the Tithonium Chasma trough system - one of the canyons of the Valles Marineris.

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[Wednesday, December 10, 2003] After a journey of 400 million km, ESA's Mars Express is now approaching its final destination. On 19 December, the spacecraft is scheduled to release the Beagle 2 lander it has been carrying since its launch on 2 June.

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[Thursday, December 11, 2003] This image shows gullies cut into debris on the southeast-facing wall of an old meteor impact crater in southeastern Hellas Planitia.

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[Sunday, December 14, 2003] After the two Mars missions were lost in 1999, NASA began looking at ways to strengthen communication during future landings. NASA plans to use tones in conjunction with other methods to assess the state of the rovers.

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[Monday, December 15, 2003] Another ESA mission is turning its gaze towards Mars. This recent image was taken by the X-ray observatory XMM-Newton.

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[Wednesday, December 17, 2003] Launched on 2 June 2003, after a six-month cruise at an average speed of about 10 kilometres per second and covering a distance of about 400 million kilometres, ESA's Mars Express will arrive at Mars on Christmas Day.

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[Wednesday, December 17, 2003] NASA's Mars Global Surveyor and Mars Odyssey missions have provided evidence of a relatively recent ice age on Mars. Martian ice ages wane when the poles cool and lock water into polar icecaps.

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[Friday, December 19, 2003] This morning, ESA's Mars Express released the Beagle 2 lander. Beagle 2 is now on its journey towards the surface of Mars, where it is expected to land early in the morning of 25 December.

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[Friday, December 19, 2003] We have separation! That was the message from the European Space Operations Centre in Darmstadt, Germany, to announce that the British-built Beagle 2 spacecraft is now flying independently from its Mars Express "mother ship".

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[Friday, December 19, 2003] Studies of the unique landscape in the Dry Valleys of Antarctica provide new insights into the origin of similar features on Mars and provide one line of evidence that suggests the Red Planet has recently experienced an ice age.

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[Friday, December 19, 2003] Mars Express has successfully released Beagle 2 on its way to Mars. Meanwhile, back on Earth, ESA's Aurora Programme is already looking several decades ahead to a time when humans will leave their footprints in the red sands

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[Friday, December 19, 2003] After the twin Mars Exploration Rovers bounce onto the red planet and begin touring the Martian terrain in January, onboard spectrometers and cameras will gather data and images --- and the rovers' wheels will dig holes.

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[Sunday, December 21, 2003] Today's manoeuvre successfully redirected the spacecraft away from Mars, back to a point 400 kilometres above the surface, where it is due to enter orbit early on Christmas Day.

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[Sunday, December 21, 2003] The RAT, part of the science-instrument package carried by the two Mars rovers, Spirit and Opportunity, uses a diamond-tipped robotic grinding tool to scrape away this weathered exterior, revealing a fresh surface.

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[Monday, December 22, 2003] The Mars Institute is launching its first global Explore Mars Lecture Tour, a series of science talks and public lectures on Mars science and exploration, past, present and future, offered in support of Mars research worldwide.

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[Monday, December 22, 2003] The Cornell University-developed, mast-mounted panoramic camera, called the Pancam, on board the rovers Spirit and Opportunity will provide the clearest, most-detailed Martian landscapes ever seen.

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[Tuesday, December 23, 2003] Steven Squyres, the principal investigator for the science instruments aboard the Spirit and Opportunity Mars rovers makes some wonder if he has found the secret to a 25-hour day. Well yes, actually, he has.

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[Tuesday, December 23, 2003] This image shows the interplay of dark, wind-blown sand with buttes and mesas of layered rock in west Candor Chasma. Dark streamers of sand point toward the east/southeast (right/lower right), indicating that dominant winds blow from the west.

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[Tuesday, December 23, 2003] Mars Express carries one of the most exciting packages of instruments in the history of Martian exploration which will allow scientists to unlock the composition of the surface and the present-day workings of the atmosphere.

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[Wednesday, December 24, 2003] At 2.47am GMT the Beagle 2 probe entered the martian atmosphere to begin the final descent to the surface, coming to rest at 2.54am.

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[Wednesday, December 24, 2003] Europe's Mars Express, the first spacecraft it has ever sent to Mars has successfully reached capture orbit.

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[Thursday, December 25, 2003] Although the first attempt to use NASA's Mars Odyssey orbiter to communicate with the lander three hours later was unsuccessful, scientists and engineers are still awaiting the best Christmas present possible.

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[Saturday, December 27, 2003] Two attempts to communicate with Beagle 2 during the last 24 hours - first with the 250 ft (76 m) Lovell Telescope at Jodrell Bank Observatory in Cheshire, UK, and then this morning with the Mars Odyssey orbiter - ended without receiving a signal.

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[Saturday, December 27, 2003] The Mars Express orbiter, mothership of Europe's first mission to the Red Planet, is in a stable and precise orbit around Mars.

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[Monday, December 29, 2003] "While we're disappointed that things have not gone according to plan, we are determined that the search should go on, both the search to make contact with Beagle 2 and also to answer the long term question about whether there is life on Mars".

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[Tuesday, December 30, 2003] A series of scheduled communication sequences were programmed into Beagle 2 prior to its separation from Mars Express. Routine communication with Mars Express before the separation confirmed that these commands had been successfully uploaded.

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[Tuesday, December 30, 2003] This morning, at 09:00 CET, Mars Express registered another operational success. The flight control team at ESOC prepared and executed another critical manoeuvre, bringing the spacecraft from an equatorial orbit into a polar orbit around Mars.

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[Tuesday, December 30, 2003] NASA's Spirit rover spacecraft fired its thrusters for 3.4 seconds on Friday, Dec. 26, to make a slight and possibly final correction in its flight path about one week before landing on Mars.

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[Tuesday, December 30, 2003] On January 3, 2004, NASA's Mars rover Spirit is scheduled to land in a strange crater that might be an ancient martian lake bed.

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[Tuesday, December 30, 2003] Like billowing smoke from a brush fire, clouds of dust are seen streaming off the edge of the martian south polar cap. The southern hemisphere is in the middle of its summer season and experiencing a multitude of small dust storms like this one.

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[Wednesday, December 31, 2003] This Mars Global Surveyor image shows the Beagle 2 landing zone about 18 minutes after the probe was scheduled to touch down on 25 December 2003. The white ellipse shows the approximate location of the landing site.

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