Images May Show Traces of Lost Mars Polar Lander

Fifteen months after the Mars Polar Lander vanished, Defense Department imaging experts have spotted what may be a trace of the spacecraft on the surface of the Red Planet, a NASA official said this week. Experts at the National Imagery and Mapping Agency have spent months poring over high-resolution images of the region where the Polar Lander was to have set down. In at least one of those images, a cluster of as few as three lighter picture elements, or pixels, stands out against a darker background, suggesting the presence of the $165-million probe.

Neither of the agencies, however, can confirm whether the pixels show up in other images of the same area, making the discovery inconclusive. Officials did not reveal where on Mars the pixels were spotted.

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Compiled by Times medical writer Thomas H. Maugh II