VISUAL ARCHIVE / IMAGE STORY
MMX Approaches Phobos
Japan’s Martian Moons eXploration mission is heading for Phobos, a small, battered moon that may preserve evidence of Mars’s violent history. Artist’s conception.
Japan’s Martian Moons eXploration mission is heading for Phobos, a small, battered moon that may preserve evidence of Mars’s violent history. Artist’s conception.
THE OBSERVATION
What we can actually see.
Phobos is an irregular, cratered moon close to Mars. MMX is designed to map its surface, study its composition, and return at least ten grams of material. The material has not yet been collected or analyzed in Earth laboratories.
THE ILLUSTRATION
What the artwork imagines.
Japan’s Martian Moons eXploration mission is heading for Phobos, a small, battered moon that may preserve evidence of Mars’s violent history. Artist’s conception. This conceptual artwork invents viewpoint, lighting, scale relationships and spacecraft details. It is not a mission photograph, a measured trajectory, or confirmation that the depicted future operation has occurred.
FROM THE ILLUSTRATED ARTICLE
The story that inspired it.
A few grains from Phobos could test how the moon formed and whether impacts delivered fragments of Mars to its surface. MMX must first turn that possibility into a carefully documented sample. The companion investigation separates the mission plan, modeled possibilities and measurements still to come.
Read Phobos: The Moon That May Preserve Mars’s PastCHECK THE RECORD
The image interprets the research below. Follow the original work for the measurements and limits behind the scene.
JAXA: MMX mission profile and sample-return objectives ESA: August Mars arrival and September 2027 Phobos operations JAXA: scientific objectives and competing moon-origin models Hyodo et al. (2019): modeled transfer of Martian impact ejectaOTHER IMAGE STORIES
Mars Sends Fragments Into Space
Competing Origins of the Martian Moons
The Mark Shared by Titan and Pluto