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Japan has revealed that it will send a spacecraft to take soil samples from the Martian moon Phobos, with the aim of bringing it back to Earth before the end of the decade. The mission is slated to launch in 2024 and will involve a first spacecraft orbiting Deimos before landing on the larger moon Phobos to sample rocks and soil.
According to the British newspaper “Daily Mail”, the Japanese agency confirmed that the project will cost 322 million pounds and will be the first project to take a sample from a moon orbiting another planet and could return to Earth as soon as possible by 2029..
If the mission goes as planned, the MMX probe will lift off from Mars’ largest moon, Phobos, with 0.35 ounces of soil samples on board.
That’s two years before NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA) returned rock samples from Mars itself, which are currently being collected by the probe.
Mars has two moons, Phobos with a diameter of 13.8 miles and Deimos with a diameter of 7.8 miles, and JAXA wants to understand how they formed, including whether they were captured asteroids, and believes that this mission will provide all the data needed to solve this mystery and whether traces of ancient life are hidden in the ground. .
Also, to achieve this goal, it will send a spacecraft into Mars space, enter orbit around Mars, then move into a semi-satellite orbit around the moons, and while it is there, it will photograph the satellites before moving to Phobos where it will land, collect samples, take off and return to Earth.
Japanese scientists say asteroids that hit Mars billions of years ago may have sent ancient microbial life to its moon, which is now dead in its soil. When the team lands on Phobos, it will use a drilling system to extract samples which will then be returned to Earth for analysis.
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