:: sight and sound on mars

Beagle 2 is also the name of the music specially composed by the British rock band Blur for the project and released by Food Records on 15 November 1999. Beagle 2 will be the call sign for the lander and will be beamed back from the surface of Mars to announce our safe arrival. Beagle 2 is an entirely new composition and is included on the CD (CD2) of the third single, No Distance Left To Run, from Blur’s platinum album ’13’.

Alex James and Dave Rowntree, space and astronomy fans, are keen supporters of the mission and their enthusiasm inspired the band to compose the new track.

Calibration chart for cameras and spectrometers

The British artist Damien Hirst joined the Beagle 2 team to provide an image on the lander based on his famous spot paintings, which will serve as the colour calibration target for the on-board cameras. These will be equipped with a variety of filters of known wave length. By using various iron oxides and other known minerals it will also be possible to obtain signals to standardise the Mössbauer and X-ray spectrometers.