Nasa says its Phoenix Mars lander mission to try and discover if life exists on Mars, has ended. The spacecraft, which didn’t have any astronauts on board, landed on the planet’s northern plains in May. It had been digging below the surface of the planet looking for signs of life, and sending back pictures to Earth. The US space agency said it hadn’t heard from the craft since 2 November, but would keep trying to contact it.

The spacecraft first landed on Mars’ arctic plains five months ago. The mission was expected

to last just three mo-nths, but carried on working for more than five months. Phoenix

mission project manager Barry Goldstein said they were stopping the operations but were going to keep listening for any sign of the craft.