Topic
Asteroid and planetary sample collection programs, including Bennu, Ryugu, Hayabusa2 and Tianwen-2, used to analyze prebiotic material in the lab.
JAXA's MMX is set to launch on an H3 rocket on 19 October and return at least ten grams of Phobos material to Earth in 2031, according to ESA. The sample is meant to help decide whether Mars's moons are captured asteroids or giant-impact debris.
Reality
Work presented at the European Geosciences Union assembly in Vienna models whether compressed rock sits beneath Phobos' largest crater, part of an effort to read the little moon's interior before Japan's MMX mission goes there to sample it.
Reality
Isabel Herreros and Sebastien Charnoz have modelled how self-gravity, Martian tides and rotation move loose material across Phobos, because on a moon that small a downhill slope does not predict which way regolith goes.
Reality
About a hundred SPH runs at the University of Bern converge on a single non-destructive strike as the source of Deimos's south-polar depression and its global regolith. The surface is ejecta, and it is weak.
Reality
A Live Science tally puts the off-Earth inventory at all five DNA and RNA nucleobases and 14 of 20 biological amino acids. The gaps are now the interesting part.
Reality