Japan set to launch world-first sample-return mission to Phobos
There's something fitting about calling Phobos an unclimbed mountain. We've sent rovers to crawl across Mars itself, but this little moon, barely more than a lump of rock, has stayed out of reach. A sample-return mission changes that, and it could settle a question that's been nagging planetary scientists for decades: is Phobos a captured asteroid or a chunk of Mars that got blasted off in an ancient impact?
I'd want to know what the samples actually show. If Phobos turns out to be a piece of Mars, then the moon is a time capsule of the planet's early history, and we'd be getting a look at the red planet without ever landing there. If it's a captured asteroid, then we're holding a fragment of the early solar system that's been floating around longer than the Earth has had life. Either way, the mission is worth the fuss.
The whole enterprise feels like a reminder that the solar system still has plenty of places we've barely touched. Mars gets the headlines, but the small, weird objects in its orbit might hold the bigger answers. I'll be watching for the launch.