Tuesday, 20 October 2026Daily Edition · No. 042

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TOH edition: Tuesday, 20 October 2026 · science

We Could Study a Martian Moon Grain by Grain—Japan Has Launched a Mission to Bring Samples Home

Reported by Smithsonian Magazine

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Photograph accompanying the original report by Smithsonian Magazine
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Japan has launched its Martian Moons eXploration spacecraft to investigate Mars’s two moons and collect material from Phobos for return to Earth in 2031. If successful, the samples could help explain how both moons formed and offer clues to Mars’s early history.

Bringing pieces of Phobos into laboratories could let scientists investigate the history of another world through individual grains, rather than distant observations alone.

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