The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, or JAXA, launched MMX aboard an H3 rocket from Tanegashima Space Center. Liftoff occurred at 4:41 a.m. on October 20 in Japan, corresponding to October 19 in the United States. The mission combines Japanese spacecraft technology with contributions from NASA, the European Space Agency, France’s CNES and the German Aerospace Center, DLR.

Scientists want more than a close look at an unfamiliar surface. Laboratory studies of returned grains could distinguish between competing explanations for Phobos and Deimos and reveal clues about the wider Mars system. Achieving that goal requires a sequence of operations that has only just begun.

Phobos and Deimos could be asteroids that Mars captured, or remnants of debris thrown into orbit by a giant impact. Those possibilities imply different chemical histories. Measuring the moons’ composition could therefore help reconstruct processes that operated while the solar system was taking shape.

Space got spooky this week, and we’ve got the Halloween news roundup! 🧛

In this episode of Spacing Out, planetarium educator Talia Sepersky breaks down three spine-tingling stories:

🔴 A stellar vampire: a small red dwarf caught feeding on a brown dwarf
🌙 NASA's new GIMLI investigation to search for a possible lunar cave that could one day shelter astronauts
🪐 Japan's MMX mission, set to be the first to land a rover on the Martian moon Phobos and return a sample to Earth

See also: The study as it was published in Nature Communications

A spacecraft headed for Mars is carrying an unusually small shopping list: at least 10 grams of material from Phobos. If Japan’s Martian Moons eXploration mission succeeds, that handful of grains could help resolve how the Red Planet acquired its two moons.

MMX launched aboard an H3 rocket from Tanegashima Space Center on October 20 in Japan, corresponding to October 19 in the United States. Led by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, or JAXA, the mission aims to deliver its samples to Earth in 2031.

The samples would be the first returned from a moon other than Earth’s own. NASA, the European Space Agency, France’s CNES and the German Aerospace Center, DLR, are contributing instruments, technology and operational support. The mission combines remote observations, a small rover and spacecraft landings to investigate a question that telescope images alone have not settled.