Mars Express closed in on the intriguing martian moon Phobos at 6:50 CEST on 23 July, flying past at 2.96 km/s, only 100 km from the centre of the moon. The ESA spacecraft’s fly-bys of the moon have returned its most detailed full-disc images ever, also in 3-D, using the High Resolution Stereo Camera on board. Phobos is what scientists call a ‘small irregular body’. Measuring 27 km × 22 km × 19 km, it is one of the least reflective objects in the Solar System, thought to be a captured asteroid or a remnant of the material that formed the planets.

Scientists and engineers are preparing ESA’s Mars Express for several close fly-bys of the Martian moon Phobos. Passing within 100 km of the surface, Mars Express will conduct some of the most detailed investigations of the moon to date. The series of fly-bys will take place between 12 July and 3 August. During the second encounter, the spacecraft will fly within 273 km of the surface. Six days later, Mars Express will close to within just 97 km.

Ever since Victorian astronomers pointed their telescopes towards Mars and wrongly believed they had discovered canals, mankind has been obsessed by the red planet. Now these astonishing new images - captured by a European spacecraft in orbit around Mars - are helping to fuel that fascination. They show in astonishing detail a network of giant valleys, vast plains and towering waterfalls carved into the surface of our neighbouring planet, millions of miles away. And while Mars today appears lifeless and parched, they are a reminder of how its surface was shaped by fast flowing streams, rivers and oceans. The pictures were captured by the European Space Agency's Mars Express Probe - a spacecraft the size of a large fridge-freezer that has been circling Mars since Christmas 2003.

Now more than ever, Mars is the focus of planetary research. A week after the resoundingly successful landing manoeuvre of NASA's Phoenix probe, scientists and engineers are celebrating the five-year anniversary of the launch of Mars Express, the first ever European planetary mission. The mission has already been extended a second time. "Mars Express has shown that Europe can assume a very important role in researching our solar system", says Professor Johann-Dietrich Wörner, Chairman of the Executive Board of the German Aerospace Center (Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt; DLR) while commenting on the Mars probe's success. "Thanks to the German stereo camera on board the Mars Express, we can now observe our neighbouring planet through more realistic 3-D images than ever before. The 3-D images have opened up 'new perspectives' in the true sense of the word, not just for Mars, but for planetary research overall", says DLR chief Wörner.

Mars is unlikely to sport beachfront property anytime soon, but the planet has enough water ice at its south pole to blanket the entire planet in more than 30 feet of water if everything thawed out. With a radar technique, astronomers have penetrated for the first time about 2.5 miles (nearly four kilometers) beneath the south pole’s frozen surface. The data showed that nearly pure water ice lies beneath. Discovered in the early 1970s, layered deposits of ice and dust cap the North and South Poles of Mars. Until now, the deposits have been difficult to study closely with existing telescopes and satellites. The current advance comes from a probe of the deposits using an instrument aboard the Mars Express orbiter.

Mars is home to the highest clouds ever discovered above the surface of a planet, astronomers said today. The European Space Agency's orbiting Mars Express spacecraft found clouds that are between 50 and 62 miles (80 to 100 kilometers) above the red planet. The highest clouds on Earth top out at about 52 miles (84 kilometers). The surprising clouds are most likely made of carbon dioxide, researchers said. There were detected with a camera that senses ultraviolet and infrared light, so there is no conventional picture of them. The clouds were spotted by observing distant stars just before they disappeared behind Mars. The stars would dim as they went behind clouds.

Dramatic 3D images of ancient lava tubes on the Martian volcano, Pavonis Mons, have been captured by the Mars Express spacecraft. Lava tubes are produced when lava on the top of a lava flow cools and forms a crust, while the subsurface lava remains molten. This molten lava continues to flow until the lava source is exhausted. In the case of Pavonis Mons, researchers believe the roofs of these tubes eventually collapsed, leaving long channels in the planet's surface.

By mapping minerals on the surface of Mars using the European Space Agency's Mars Express spacecraft, scientists have discovered the three ages of Martian geological history – as reported in today's issue of Science - and found valuable clues as to where life might have developed. The new work shows that large bodies of standing water might only have been present on Mars in the remote past, before four thousand million years ago, if they were present at all. Within half a billion years, these conditions had faded away.

These images, taken by the High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC) on board ESA's Mars Express spacecraft, show the region of Libya Montes, south of the Isidis Planitia impact basin on Mars. The HRSC obtained these images during orbit 922 with a ground resolution of approximately 14.3 metres per pixel at equatorial latitudes near longitude 81 East.

The British scientist behind the failed Beagle 2 probe said Tuesday he believes he has located the craft’s wreckage on the surface of Mars. Nothing has been heard from Beagle 2 — named for the ship that took naturalist Charles Darwin on his 19th-century voyage of discovery — since it separated from its mother ship Dec. 19, 2003. It had been due to land on Mars six days later. Colin Pillinger, the lead scientist on the mission, said the latest images from NASA’s Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft suggested Beagle plunged into a crater near its planned landing site.

The scientist behind the British Beagle 2 mission to the Red Planet says the craft may have been found in pictures of the Martian surface. Colin Pillinger says the images suggest the mission very nearly worked, but Beagle somehow failed to contact Earth. He thinks the craft may have hit the ground too hard - as the atmosphere was thinner than usual because of dust storms in that region of Mars. This may have damaged onboard instruments, preventing the call home.

For the first time in the history of planetary exploration, the MARSIS radar on board ESA's Mars Express has provided direct information about the deep subsurface of Mars. First data include buried impact craters, probing of layered deposits at the north pole and hints of the presence of deep underground water-ice.

Substantial quantities of liquid water must have been stably present in the early history of Mars. The findings of OMEGA, on board ESA's Mars Express, have implications on the climatic history of the planet and the question of its 'habitability' at some point in its history. These conclusions were drawn thanks to data on Martian surface minerals obtained by OMEGA (Observatoire pour la Mineralogy, l'Eau, les Glaces et l'Activité), the visible and infrared mapping spectrometer on board ESA's Mars Express.

ESA’s Mars Express mission is continuing its investigations of Mars, painting a new picture of the 'red planet'. This includes the first ever probing below the surface of Mars, new geological clues with implications for the climate, newly-discovered surface and atmospheric features and, above all, traces of the presence of water on this world. These and other exciting findings from just one year of observations and data analysis - in the context of ESA’s overall scientific achievements - will be the focus of a press conference to be held at ESA Headquarters in Paris at 16:00 on 30 November 2005.

ESA’s Mars Express mission has been extended by one Martian year, or about 23 months, from the beginning of December 2005. The decision, taken on 19 September by ESA’s Science Programme Committee, allows the spacecraft orbiting the Red Planet to continue building on the legacy of its own scientific success. Co-ordinated from the beginning with the Mars science and exploration activities of other agencies, Mars Express has revealed an increasingly complex picture of Mars. Since the start of science operations in early 2004, new aspects of Mars are emerging day by day, thanks to Mars Express data. These include its present-day climate system, and its geological ‘activity’ and diversity. Mars Express has also started mapping water in its various states.