Will.i.am no longer the first musician to be played on Mars following Beagle 2 discovery

Beagle 2 gets sweet revenge from the past

(Getty)

The astonishing discovery of the UK's Beagle 2 lander on the surface of Mars brings with it the happy news that Will.i.am is no longer the first human artist to be played on the planet.

That accolade now belongs to Blur (though we all know it should have been Darude's for God's sake).

The Britpop band were still pretty big when the Beagle 2 launched in 2003, and so were asked to compose a short jingle (later expanded into a full song, below) to be played when it reached Mars' surface.

Mission control lost all contact with the lander after it deployed from the orbiter, which it transpires did in fact land on the planet, with manager Mark Sims today saying that Blur's tune "probably played on Mars".

It's not great. Here are some things it sounds like:

- Lift music at a private health centre

- Keygen backing music

- The boot-up music for a piece of software

- The menu music on a DLC computer game

- The beginning of a car advert

(H/T The Verge)