A dark splotch on Mars most likely marks the remnants of a spacecraft that tried to land there this week, the European Space Agency said on Friday.

Officials at the space agency had not been optimistic about the fate of the Schiaparelli lander but lacked conclusive evidence that it had been destroyed. During its six-minute trip through the Martian atmosphere, the lander at first appeared to be operating well, but it stopped sending data after the ejection of its heat shield.

Schiaparelli was part of ExoMars 2016, a joint mission by the European and Russian space agencies.

On Thursday, NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, passing overhead, took photographs of the area, which revealed two new features on the landscape, compared with what the orbiter had seen in May.