The Martian Moons eXploration spacecraft, set to launch October 20, will bring back pristine surface material that scientists hope will provide a breakthrough sufficient to cross the moon off their list forever.
JAXA's probe will utilize a pneumatic mechanism to gather at least 10 grams of regolith from Mars's largest satellite, analyzing its chemical composition to determine if it is debris from a giant impact or merely a captured asteroid. Researchers say the resulting data should resolve a century-old origin mystery, finally freeing up vital cognitive bandwidth currently being wasted on a deeply uninteresting rock.
The sheer scale of the engineering required to settle the dispute is staggering. After a multi-year transit, the MMX will map the cratered surface before dropping into its tenuous gravity well to secure the sample. This pristine material will then be sealed in a return capsule and hurled back toward Earth, delivering the empirical data required to tell a vocal faction of the International Astronomical Union to shut up.
For over a hundred years, the astrophysics community has been vexed by the hypothesis that Phobos might be a captured D-type asteroid, which has been incredibly annoying for all of us.
However, independent researchers caution that the mission's success is not guaranteed. A recent preprint in Nature modeled the devastating psychological toll of ambiguous isotopic ratios, with planetary scientists at a lab at MIT warning that if the sample is contaminated, it may fail to achieve a statistically significant resolution. Such a failure, they noted, could accidentally generate three new mysteries, trapping humanity in a cycle of Martian moon observation for another century.
Pending a successful replication of the findings, JAXA engineers confirm they will immediately begin pivoting their telescope arrays toward Mars's smaller, even less relevant moon, Deimos, to determine if it can also be safely ignored.