Japan tests its Mars moon sample-return probe ahead of 2026 launch (photo)
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission.
Japan is putting its Martian Moons eXploration (MMX) spacecraft through a series of tests ahead of its launch to Mars next year.
MMX is a complex mission to collect samples from the moon Phobos and deliver them to Earth to solve the riddle of the origin of the tiny Martian satellite.
The spacecraft has been put into a vacuum chamber to test its readiness for deep space, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) announced on May 15 via its official mission channel on the social media platform X.
"MMX is undergoing a thermal vacuum test, in which the spacecraft is placed in a vacuum chamber where the environment simulates outer space and the operation for each of the onboard instruments is checked," JAXA stated.
The image shows the spacecraft's return and exploration modules, while MMX's little IDEFIX rover can be seen in the center, attached to the exploration module. The 55-pound (25 kilograms) IDEFIX rover was developed by the German Aerospace Center (known by the German acronym DLR) and the French space agency Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales (CNES).
Related stories:
— New Japanese spacecraft aims to explore the mysterious moons of Mars
— Mars: Everything you need to know about the Red Planet
— Mars moons: Facts about Phobos and Deimos
A main objective of MMX is to determine whether Phobos and the smaller companion moon Deimos are captured asteroids, or formed from fragments blown into orbit after a giant impact struck Mars. The mission also aims to provide new insights into the history of the Red Planet and planetary formation in general across the wider solar system.
MMX is due to be launched on Japan's flagship H3 rocket from Tanegashima Space Center during the next Mars launch window, in November-December 2026. It was earlier scheduled to launch in the previous launch window in 2024, but this was delayed due to issues with the H3 rocket.
If all goes well, MMX will arrive in orbit around Mars in 2027 to begin mapping and analyzing Phobos and Deimos and search for a landing site. MMX will then land on Phobos in 2029 to collect around 0.35 oz (10 grams) of samples. These are expected to be delivered to Earth in 2031.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
5 hours ago
- Yahoo
What does lightning look like from space? See stunning photos from astronauts on ISS
It's safe to say that most of us have seen lightning here on Earth plenty of times – some of us have even been struck by it. But the natural phenomenon is one all but a few select individuals will ever have the chance to see from the vantage of 250 miles in orbit. Fortunately, a few astronauts over the years have been more than willing to generously share a glimpse of crashing lightning as seen from outer space. And you better believe it looks nothing like what we're used to seeing from the ground. The latest images of sky-splitting lightning came courtesy of two NASA astronauts who reached the International Space Station together in March after launching from NASA's Kennedy Space Center near Cape Canaveral, Florida. In May, Nichole Ayers and Anne McClain posted photos on social media site X of lightning roiling far, far beneath them. "This is what lightning looks like from the top down," McClain said in a post shared May 21. Here's a closer look at just what they managed to capture from above Earth's atmosphere. The images McClain and Ayers shared show electrostatic discharges – in other words, lightning – from above the clouds as they orbited in the International Space Station. In Ayers' post on X, she said she first observed lightning May 1 while suited up for a spacewalk outside the orbital outpost. She then managed to capture a few photos the next day, which she shared May 5. "I am so amazed by the view we have up here of our Earth's weather systems," Ayers posted. While it was unclear what part of Earth the lightning was striking in Ayers' photos, McClain said her images were captured over Alabama and Georgia. "Fast and furious, but also an incredible sight!" McClain said. The photos not only reveal the chaotic beauty of lightning, but could provide valuable orbital data to scientists studying the phenomenon back on Earth. Here's a look at some of the astronauts' photos: The photos were captured at speeds of 120 frames per second, with the depicted flashes only taking up one frame. The technique was pioneered by veteran NASA astronaut Don Pettit, who is renowned for his astral photography. Pettit, who had arrived in September 2024 for his third and most recent space station stint, departed April 19, 2025, with two cosmonauts before safely landing in Kazakhstan on his 70th birthday. Ayers and McClain, who also recently made headlines for completing a rare all-female spacewalk, are among seven people living at the International Space Station. The crew of Expedition 73 includes three Americans, three Russian cosmonauts and one Japanese spacefarer from the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (Jaxa.) McClain and Ayers are both part of a SpaceX mission known as Crew-10 that reached the space station in March 2025. Their arrival with JAXA astronaut Takuya Onishi and Roscosmos cosmonaut Kirill Peskov paved the way for the NASA astronauts who crewed the doomed Boeing Starliner to depart with the Crew-9 mission. Also at the station is NASA astronaut Jonny Kim, who reached the outpost in April 2025 with cosmonauts Sergey Ryzhikov and Alexey Zubritsky. Eric Lagatta is the Space Connect reporter for the USA TODAY Network. Reach him at elagatta@ This article originally appeared on Florida Today: Lightning from space: Astronauts post stunning weather images on X
Yahoo
9 hours ago
- Yahoo
The Milky Way may not collide with neighboring galaxy Andromeda after all: 'From near-certainty to a coin flip'
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. A titanic cosmic collision between the Milky Way and its closest large galactic neighbor, Andromeda, may not be as sure a thing as scientists thought. Previously, it had been proposed that there was a good chance that Andromeda and our galactic home, which are moving together, would meet in around 5 billion years and merge to form a daughter galaxy dubbed "Milkomeda." New research has revealed that there is a much smaller chance that these two spiral galaxies will slam into each other and merge over the next 10 billion years than was believed. In fact, it's about 50/50. "Our main finding is that the merger between the Milky Way and Andromeda, which had been predicted to occur in around 4.5 billion years, is actually much less certain. We found only about a 50% chance that this merger will happen during the next 10 billion years," team leader and University of Helsinki researcher Til Sawala told "In short, the probability went from near-certainty to a coin flip. "I was prepared to find something different, but yes, the fact that there is only around a 50/50 chance of a merger was very surprising." Sawala and colleagues reached this conclusion by simulating the next 10 billion years of the Milky Way's journey through the new simulation was based on updated astronomical data from the Hubble Space Telescope and from the European Space Agency (ESA) star tracking mission Gaia. The team also factored in new estimates of the masses of smaller dwarf galaxies around the Milky Way, which, via their gravitational influence, impact the cosmic passage of the Milky Way. "The main difference between our research and previous studies is that we benefited from newer and more precise data, and that we considered a more complete system, including the effect of the Large Magellanic Cloud, the Milky Way's largest satellite galaxy," Sawala said. The team was able to present different scenarios of what could become of the Milky Way and Andromeda galaxies as they gradually move together."A head-on collision is very unlikely, we found a less than 2% chance for that. In most of the cases that lead to a merger, the two galaxies will indeed fly past each other at first, which will lead to a loss of orbital energy, and subsequently to a merger," Sawala said. "How close they come on their first passage is very uncertain, however, and if they don't come very close, meaning if their distance is more than around 500,000 light-years, they might not merge at all." The researchers found that if the orbits of the Milky Way and Andromeda come close enough for the two galaxies to gravitationally influence each other, then a merger is an eventuality. "But it's almost equally likely that they stay well separated, in which case they won't merge, and also continue to evolve mostly in isolation," The team found that while the odds of a merger with Andromeda drop when the Large Magellanic Cloud's influence is considered, with this adjustment, the Milky Way becomes more likely to cannibalize this satellite dwarf to this research, our galaxy is almost certain to merge with the Large Magellanic Cloud over the next 2 billion years. Related Stories: — Why do dwarf galaxies line up? 'Zippers' and 'twisters' in the early universe may solve a galactic mystery — Scientists calculate when the universe will end — it's sooner than expected — Amateur astrophotographer captures a stunning galaxy 24 million light-years from Earth (photo) "Of course, now we really want to find out whether the Milky Way and Andromeda will collide or not," Sawala said. "That will not only need more observational data, but also more complete modelling of their interaction, as well as of the effect of the environment in which they evolve. "Luckily, there will be more observational data coming very soon, next year, from the Gaia Space Telescope, and perhaps also from the Hubble Space Telescope." The team's research was published on Monday (June 2) in the journal Nature Astronomy.
Yahoo
9 hours ago
- Yahoo
Turning the Red Planet green? It's time to take terraforming Mars seriously, scientists say
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. The concept of terraforming Mars — transforming the planet's climate to support life as we know it — has long belonged to the realm of science fiction. But a new study argues that it's time to take the idea seriously. "Thirty years ago, terraforming Mars wasn't just hard — it was impossible," said Erika DeBenedictis, CEO of Pioneer Labs and lead author of the new paper. "But new technology like [SpaceX's] Starship and synthetic biology have now made it a real possibility." The paper debates the complex ethical questions that must be considered if we're to terraform Mars and lays the blueprint for a potential path forward. "Advocates argue that more life is better than less, and terraforming Mars could mark humanity's first act of planetary stewardship with a net positive environmental impact," said DeBenedictis. Put succinctly, "living planets are better than dead ones," said study co-author Edwin Kite, an associate professor at the University of Chicago. "We now know that Mars was habitable in the past, from data returned by the Mars rovers, so greening Mars could be viewed as the ultimate environmental restoration challenge." Though full terraforming may take centuries, if not millennia, the long-term goal would be a Mars with stable liquid water, breathable oxygen and a thriving ecosystem. In the short term, this might mean only small patches of microbial life; in the distant future, there could perhaps be human cities on the planet. And if we reach the scale of cities, perhaps that's a stepping stone to even more significant exploration for our species. "As we move out into the galaxy, we will need base camps, and a base camp on the scale of the galaxy is a habitable planet," said Kite. For co-author Robin Wordsworth, a professor of environmental and planetary science at Harvard, the argument for terraforming Mars goes beyond human colonization to the propagation of life in general. "I see humanity as part of the biosphere, not separate from it," he said. "Life is precious — we know of nowhere else in the universe where it exists — and we have a duty to conserve it on Earth, but also to consider how we could begin to propagate it to other worlds." It's not all about looking beyond the bounds of Earth; terraforming Mars could also help us solve climate and sustainability challenges at home, advocates say. Nina Lanza, a planetary scientist at Los Alamos National Laboratory and a co-author on the paper, sees Mars as a prime testbed for planetary engineering. "If we want to learn how to modify our environment here on Earth, to keep it in a configuration that suits us and other life forms, maybe it would be better to experiment on Mars and say, 'Look, does this work?'" she said. "I personally would like to be a little more conservative with our home planet. This is the only place we can live." There are technological lessons to be learned, too. "Concretely, developing and adopting green technology on Earth often falters because it must compete with dirtier alternatives that benefit from decades of infrastructure investment and entrenched interests," said DeBenedictis. "Mars is a unique target market because it has no oil, no existing infrastructure and no status quo. For this reason, developing green technologies for space is a powerful strategy for maturing it for use on Earth." But we should take a few lessons from "Jurassic Park" when thinking about terraforming, some scientists say: Before asking, "Could we?" we need to ask, "Should we?" "If we decide to terraform Mars, then we will really change it in ways that may or may not be reversible," said Lanza. "Mars is its own planet and has its own history. When we terraform, then we effectively don't have the opportunity to study that anymore, and we may lose knowledge about how planets form and evolve." Most dramatically, we may destroy potential evidence of ancient Martian life, if such evidence exists. "If we modify the environment on Mars, we're going to change the chemistry of the surface and of the subsurface, eventually," said Lanza, pointing out that such actions might erase any traces of life on Mars. "I can't say for certain. It's very complicated, but it's a risk." Terraforming Mars would require massive changes, namely the warming of the planet to support both oxygen-producing microbes and liquid water. While all the technologies to terraform Mars are not yet available, the authors of the paper propose three phases of development. First, scientists would use abiotic climate engineering techniques — such as deploying reflective solar sails, dispersing nanoparticles, or laying aerogel tiles — to warm the surface by at least 30 degrees Celsius (86 degrees Fahrenheit), enough to melt subsurface ice and release trapped carbon dioxide. This warming would thicken the Martian atmosphere and potentially support the presence of stable liquid water. The second phase would introduce extremophile microbes — likely anaerobic and genetically engineered ones — capable of surviving in Mars' harsh conditions and kickstarting ecological succession. These organisms would begin producing oxygen and organic matter, slowly altering planetary chemistry. The third and longest phase would focus on building a complex biosphere, increasing atmospheric pressure and oxygen content to eventually support more advanced plant life, and, in the very long term, potentially allow humans to breathe unassisted. Related stories: — Could we really terraform Mars? — New Mars terraforming idea: engineered, heat-absorbing dust nanoparticles — Bad news for terraforming: Mars' atmosphere is lost in space The study's authors agree: If we're to have any chance of terraforming Mars, we must move forward on multiple fronts simultaneously. "Answering the question of when and how to start making other worlds habitable requires a clear understanding of the costs and benefits, which can only be adequately assessed based on a combination of theory and experiments, with input from diverse fields including physics, chemistry, materials science and biology," said Kite. Right now, we need to continue to study Mars. Lanza advocates for the Mars Sample Return mission, a NASA-European Space Agency campaign to bring home material collected on the Red Planet by the Perseverance rover. "The samples are incredibly well documented and analyzed to the best of our ability on Mars," she said. "Now we need to bring those back, because that's going to help us answer some of these fundamental questions. What is Mars made out of? Are there traces of life?" And, as we continue to visit the Red Planet, we can put terraforming concepts into practice. "Upcoming Mars surface missions in 2028 or 2031 should include small-scale experiments to de-risk terraforming strategies, such as warming localized regions," said DeBenedictis. Then, of course, we need to continue to innovate new technologies that will allow us to terraform Mars in the future. All this is to say, while fully terraforming Mars might take generations, the decisions start now. "This is how we get from the imagination and the concept to some reality that has totally changed our world," said Lanza. "We should really keep doing science — it's transformational." The new study was published last month in the journal Nature Astronomy.
