Japan’s MMX mission set to grab a piece of Mars’s moon Phobos

Bringing material from Mars back to Earth has long been an ambition of space scientists.

The Nasa Perseverance rover, which has been exploring Mars since 2021, has been carefully collecting samples on Mars and storing them in canisters.

But a second Nasa/ESA mission, called Mars Sample Return, that would have picked up and returned these canisters, has been effectively cancelled, after its funding was halted by the US Congress.

China is planning its own sampling mission to Mars, set to launch in 2028. It will attempt to return Martian material to Earth in 2031.

We do already have some fragments of the Red Planet here on Earth in the form of Martian meteorites.

These are pieces of Mars that were blasted off the surface by asteroid strikes, and ended up being hurled towards the Earth.

Martian meteorites are extremely rare, but like all space rocks that fall to our planet, they become contaminated as soon as they get here, mixing with the air, dust, soil and water.

Scientists are so desperate to get their gloved hands on a direct sample from Mars and its moons because it would be pristine.

The MMX mission is scheduled to blast off from the Tanegashima Space Center at 0441 local time on 20 October (2041BST 19 October).