NASA to Help Unlock Mysteries of Mars’ Moons in Upcoming Mission

NASA is playing an important role in JAXA’s (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) MMX (Martian Moons eXploration) mission, to advance our understanding of Mars’ moons and build on the agency’s long history of exploring the Red Planet.

The mission aims to characterize and determine the origin of Mars’ moons Phobos and Deimos and deliver a sample of Phobos to Earth. The MMX spacecraft is targeting launch from JAXA’s Tanegashima Space Center in Japan at 3:41 p.m. EDT on Monday, Oct. 19 (4:41 a.m. JST on Tuesday, Oct. 20).

An artist’s concept of JAXA’s MMX spacecraft during its Mars’ orbit insertion. The Martian moon Phobos, which MMX will explore and sample, is in the background.

JAXA

“The samples from MMX will bring forth paradigm-shifting science on the Mars system for generations to come, especially as NASA prepares to send the first humans to Mars,” said Nicky Fox, associate administrator, Science Mission Directorate, NASA Headquarters in Washington. “The NASA-JAXA sample curation partnership is extremely valuable, and I am proud that NASA Science is supporting MMX sample curation and will be sharing portions of these samples for study as we continue to expand humanity’s understanding of the universe for the benefit of all.”

NASA’s contributions to the mission include the Mars-moon Exploration with Gamma rays and Neutrons (MEGANE) spectrograph instrument, the Pneumatic Sampler (P-Sampler) technology demonstration, and communications and navigation support from the agency’s Deep Space Network, as well as funding United States scientists participating on the MMX science team.

Scientists have long debated the origin of Mars’ two moons. The data and samples collected by the MMX mission will help answer essential questions about the origins of these moons and the history of the solar system.

“Phobos and Deimos may be the remains of a massive impact on Mars that sent material into orbit around the planet, or they could be ancient asteroids that were captured by Mars’ gravity billions of years ago,” said Tom Statler, MMX program executive and program scientist at NASA Headquarters. “Having the answer will help illuminate that early era when Earth and the other inner planets may have been acquiring much of their water and organic compounds.”

The MEGANE (pronounced meh-GAH-nay, the Japanese word for eyeglasses) spectrograph will help scientists “see” what Phobos is made of by measuring neutrons and gamma rays emitted from the moon’s surface and determining its chemical elemental composition, which will provide important clues about its origin.

Mounted on one of the spacecraft’s landing legs, the P-Sampler is designed to collect a ground sample from Phobos. The system gathers surface material using bursts of high-pressure nitrogen gas, complementing JAXA’s C-Sampler, which will extract cores from a few inches deeper. NASA will obtain and curate about 15% of the total returned sample at the agency’s Johnson Space Center Astromaterials Lab in Houston, making it available for research for decades.

Another key part of NASA’s contribution to MMX is its scientific partnership with JAXA. NASA-supported researchers are working alongside international colleagues to help reveal the story of Phobos and will use mission data and returned samples to uncover new clues about the moon’s origin and the evolution of the Mars system.

The MMX spacecraft will arrive at Mars in August 2027 to begin its survey of the Red Planet’s two moons. After surveying Phobos in detail, the spacecraft will collect a sample of the moon’s surface no earlier than December 2028 and deliver it to Earth in 2031.

The MEGANE instrument was developed by the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory. Honeybee Robotics, a Blue Origin company, developed the spacecraft’s pneumatic sampler mechanism. NASA’s contributions to the MMX mission were developed under the agency’s Discovery Program. The Discovery Program is managed by NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, for the agency’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington.

For more information about the MMX mission, visit: https://science.nasa.gov/mission/mmx 

Patricia Talbert

Karen Fox / Alana Johnson
Headquarters, Washington

Source: NASA to Help Unlock Mysteries of Mars’ Moons in Upcoming Mission - NASA Science

Gut power: Small intestine–inspired biobatteries could generate electricity from wastewater - Energy & Green Tech - Hi Tech & Innovation

New biobatteries developed at Binghamton University are inspired by the fingerlike protuberances called villi that line the digestive tract and help us to digest. Credit: Binghamton University

When trying to figure out a better design for a bacteria-powered biobattery, Binghamton University researchers found inspiration in nature—specifically, the insides of our small intestines.

Fingerlike protuberances called villi line the digestive tract and are covered with microorganisms that help us to digest our food. Their shape and behavior also prove to be ideal for generating bioenergy using spore-forming bacteria.

Professor Seokheun "Sean" Choi and Ph.D. students Ruohan "Astrid" Zhang and Botian Wang from the Thomas J. Watson College of Engineering and Applied Science's Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering recently published their findings in the journal Small.

More surface area for bacteria

Choi's previous research has explored a variety of biobattery configurations with paper, fabric, metal and polymers, and he is trying to integrate them into 3D-printed circuits. He's even created an ingestible biobattery that remains inert until it activates in the small intestine.

As a pioneer of papertronics, Choi is most interested in using paper as the medium. One limitation he's discovered among nearly all the materials he's tried: two-dimensional configurations don't offer enough surface area for the spore-forming Bacillus subtilis bacteria to thrive. The porous nature of paper offers limited three-dimensional possibilities but can lead to performance issues. 

Villi-inspired biobatteries could be installed in wastewater pipes to produce electricity. Credit: Binghamton University

"Porous structures can be easily clogged by biofilm formation, so we had a lot of problems with nutrient delivery, waste buildup or uneven biofilm growth," said Choi, who leads the Bioelectronics and Microsystems Lab. "What we need is a bioelectrode that mimics living tissue, so that we provide a large surface area and short diffusion distance, efficient mass transport and, at the same time, mechanical flexibility, stretchability and scalability."

Villi-shaped electrodes deliver steady power

For this latest research, the Binghamton team fabricated the villi-inspired structures out of a dormant yet flexible polymer hydrogel commonly used for biomedical applications. They seeded inactive bacteria throughout the villi, which act as the biobattery's anode. To generate small amounts of electricity, the villi are separated from a modified carbon-cloth cathode by an ion-exchange membrane.

With a constant supply of nutrient medium, the villi device maintained a stable output of about 0.75 volts for at least 14 hours—enough to light small LEDs or power microsensors. One possibility for future use would be self-powered wastewater treatment.

"We can put this biobattery in a waste pipe, because it can easily be integrated with its surroundings," Choi said. "It can use the waste in the water as a nutrient and generate power, and it can exactly conform to the shape and size of the pipeline."

The Binghamton University team manufactured various sizes of villi-inspired biobatteries to see which ones provided optimum electric output. Credit: Binghamton University

Toward a closer match with living tissue

As an electrical engineer, Zhang admitted she wasn't too familiar with the human digestive system before this research, but she and Choi did a lot of reading before deciding to design and build a villi-inspired biobattery.

"I now know how the structure looks and how the bacteria in the gut perform," she said. "I also studied a lot more about the exact structure of the villi and how the different layers of cells function, so I can integrate them in our work."

The Binghamton team wants to improve the manufacturing process for the villi-inspired biobatteries by developing a single-step, scalable printing method. The researchers also would like to move closer to how our bodies work, with bacteria in our digestive tract staying mostly near the surface in a mucous layer that coats the villi.

"In this work, we tried to mimic the architectural part," Choi said. "We need to mimic their actual physiological and chemical makeup to truly understand how those bacterial cells can maintain their viability." 

Provided by Binghamton University 

by Chris Kocher, Binghamton University

edited by Lisa Lock, reviewed by Robert Egan 

Source: Gut power: Small intestine–inspired biobatteries could generate electricity from wastewater