It takes years to often decades for new telescope sites to be transformed from wild mountains to observatories, which is still fast compared to how long it can take space missions to get their jobs done. One exceptionally fast mission is a new Mars probe planned by Japan that is slated to launch in 2024 and bring back a 10-gram sample from the Martian moon Phobos. This will make Japan the first nation to sample Mars… sort of. It is expected that about 0.1% of the surface material on Phobos is from Mars, which means 10 grams from Phobos should contain thirty granules from Mars. It is hoped that this kind of sample will be enough to get a firmer understanding of the past Martian biosphere.

This is your regular reminder that the pace of science can be slow, but when things do happen, we’ll bring them to you here on the Daily Space.

More Information

Japan aims to bring back soil samples from Mars moon by 2029 (Phys.org)