The Japanese space agency is leading a five-year mission to Phobos, one of Mars’s two small moons, aiming to return samples that could explain how the Martian moons formed and possibly shed light on the origins of life in the solar system.
The Japanese space agency is leading a five-year mission to Phobos, one of Mars’s two small moons, aiming to return samples that could explain how the Martian moons formed and possibly shed light on the origins of life in the solar system.
Five years and a budget that could fund a few hospitals, all for a moon that might be a captured asteroid. Here’s the uncomfortable part: if Phobos turns out to be dead rock, what’s the follow-up? Do they refund the “origins of life” rhetoric? Or is the sample return the point, and the science is just garnish?