{"id":8973,"date":"2026-10-19T18:50:03","date_gmt":"2026-10-19T18:50:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/silvybrand.com\/?p=8973"},"modified":"2026-10-19T18:50:03","modified_gmt":"2026-10-19T18:50:03","slug":"japan-audacious-mmx-mission-sample-martian-moon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/silvybrand.com\/?p=8973","title":{"rendered":"Japan\u2019s MMX Mission Wants to Bring Martian Moon Samples Back to Earth"},"content":{"rendered":"


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It\u2019s difficult to imagine a more daunting journey than one to an alien moon named after the Greek god of fear\u2014especially when three other attempts to make that journey have failed.<\/p>\n

And yet, as Japan\u2019s space agency, JAXA, and its collaborators gear up to send a spacecraft to Mars<\/a>\u2019 formidably named moon, \u201call the members are filled with a quiet sense of excitement,\u201d says Kiyoshi Kuramoto, who leads the mission\u2019s slew of international scientists.<\/p>\n

This mission, called the Martian Moons eXploration (MMX), is set to launch from Japan\u2019s Tanegashima Space Center in the wee hours of Tuesday in Japan (Monday afternoon in the US). After almost a year of travel, the spacecraft will reach Mars<\/a> and its two moons<\/a>: Phobos, meaning fear in Greek, and Deimos, meaning dread. MMX will observe the pair from afar and collect samples from Phobos in a bid to answer a looming scientific question: How, exactly, did the moons come to be?<\/p>\n

Researchers have been attempting similar gambits for decades. Since the 1980s, Russia has sent three probes to Phobos, all of which failed. Still, researchers are anxious to achieve this mission impossible because the origin of Phobos and its sibling remains a mystery. Some of their attributes, such as the pattern of visible light they reflect, suggest they are asteroids captured into Mars\u2019 orbit by its gravity. But the moons\u2019 circular orbits in line with the Martian equator indicate that they could have formed from debris left over from a collision between a nascent Mars and a gigantic asteroid, Tom Statler, MMX program executive at NASA, said at a press briefing.<\/p>\n

The new mission is designed to help settle the debate by surveying Mars and the moons in detail using a suite of scientific instruments. With MMX\u2019s MEGANE instrument, for instance, researchers will determine the elemental makeup of Phobos by measuring the neutrino particles<\/a> and gamma rays<\/a> it emits. If Phobos ends up having more volatile elements such as hydrogen or potassium, it could lean closer to the captured-asteroid hypothesis, while fewer volatiles could support the impact idea.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe know nothing about Phobos’ elemental composition,\u201d says David Lawrence, who leads the MEGANE team from Johns Hopkins University. \u201cFor me, that\u2019s what\u2019s exciting\u2014making a measurement nobody\u2019s done before.\u201d<\/p>\n

These observations are \u201cgoing to give us a hint at some of the answers to the really big questions we have about Phobos,\u201d says Abigail Fraeman, an MMX team member at NASA\u2019s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. \u201cBut really, the return samples are going to nail those questions.\u201d After scoping out Phobos with its onboard instruments and a rover\u2014which will land ahead of the spacecraft to explore the new terrain\u2014the spacecraft will land on the moon to collect at least 10 grams of material using two different sampling methods. The goal is to bring them to Earth by 2031, which would make them the first ever samples returned from a moon other than our own.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n


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It\u2019s difficult to imagine a more daunting journey than one to an alien moon named after the Greek god of fear\u2014especially when three other attempts to make that journey have failed. And yet, as Japan\u2019s space agency, JAXA, and its collaborators gear up to send a spacecraft to Mars\u2019 formidably named moon, \u201call the members […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8974,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[1100,346,347,170,949],"class_list":["post-8973","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-gadgets","tag-japan","tag-mars","tag-nasa","tag-space","tag-space-exploration"],"yoast_head":"\nJapan\u2019s MMX Mission Wants to Bring Martian Moon Samples Back to Earth - Silvybrand Lifestyle Blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"JAXA is leading an international mission to reach Mars\u2019 Phobos moon and bring soil back to Earth. 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