Astrology

Japan launches MMX mission to collect the first samples from Mars's moon Phobos

Japan's MMX spacecraft lifted off from the Tanegashima Space Center at 3:41 p.m. EDT on October 19, bound for Mars's moon Phobos, Popular Science reports. The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency mission aims to collect samples from Phobos and return them to Earth, a feat that has never been attempted for either Martian moon, according to Popular Science and ECOticias.com.

Published

A rover named Idefix precedes the sample collection#

MMX is expected to reach Phobos in August 2027, remain there for at least 16 months, and gather material that will not land back on Earth until 2031 at the earliest, according to Popular Science. ECOticias.com reports that a rover will touch down on the moon first, righting itself autonomously before a roughly three-month mission phase there, according to DLR, the German Aerospace Center.

MMX is led by JAXA together with NASA, the French space agency CNES, DLR and the European Space Agency, and DLR calls it the largest Japanese mission to the Solar System to date, ECOticias.com reports. Yasuhiro Kawakatsu, the MMX project manager at JAXA, called the launch "an emotional milestone for all of us" in a DLR announcement.

Why scientists call the moons a puzzle#

Phobos and Deimos have puzzled astronomers since Asaph Hall discovered them in 1877, and researchers still cannot settle on how they formed, KSBW reports. "What are these little space potatoes? We can't explain Phobos or Deimos right now. They shouldn't exist, but they do," said Dr. Abigail Fraeman, a research scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, according to KSBW.

JAXA frames the dispute as one between two camps, ECOticias.com reports: one side argues a giant impact on Mars scattered debris that became the moons, while the other holds the moons are asteroids captured by the planet's gravity. DLR notes that about 150 years after their discovery, whether the moons were captured or formed from impact debris remains unresolved, per ECOticias.com.

Phobos is also moving roughly 6 feet closer to Mars every 100 years, and KSBW reports scientists project it will eventually either collide with the planet or break apart into a ring that stays in orbit. Its defining feature, Stickney crater, is about 6 miles wide and covers roughly half the tiny moon's surface, according to KSBW.

NASA's stake in a Japanese-led mission#

While MMX is a JAXA mission, NASA contributed instruments and technologies to support it, Popular Science reports. Nicky Fox, NASA's associate administrator for the Science Mission Directorate, said the Phobos samples "will bring forth paradigm-shifting science on the Mars system for generations to come, especially as NASA prepares to send the first humans to Mars," according to Popular Science.

Discover more