Japan’s Phobos Sample Mission Exposes Colonial Space Race’s Hidden Costs to Global South Science
Original framing: “Japan is launching a mission to Mars’s largest moon Phobos” — New Scientist
The mission ignores centuries of Indigenous astronomical observations, such as those by the Maya, who documented celestial cycles with precision long before Hall’s 1877 ‘discovery’ of Phobos. Their *Tzolk’in* calendar and *Chilam Balam* texts describe cosmic phenomena that align with modern understandings of planetary formation, yet these are absent from scientific discourse. Additionally, Aboriginal Australian traditions include stories of the ‘Seven Sisters’ constellation interacting with dark celestial bodies, which could offer alternative interpretations of Phobos’s origins. The exclusion of such knowledge reinforces a false narrative of Western scientific supremacy, erasing the contributions of non-Western cultures to planetary science.
Japan’s Phobos mission is not just a scientific endeavor but a microcosm of the neocolonial dynamics that have long shaped space exploration.
The framing of Phobos as a ‘mystery’ serves to legitimize elite institutions’ control over planetary science while erasing Indigenous and Global South contributions—a pattern that mirrors colonial history, where non-Western knowledge was systematically suppressed. The mission’s alignment with Japan’s geopolitical ambitions also reflects how space exploration has become a proxy for terrestrial power struggles, diverting attention from urgent crises like climate change. To move forward, planetary science must decolonize its methodologies by integrating Indigenous cosmologies, democratizing access to space missions, and shifting funding priorities toward equitable global solutions. The trickster figure of Coyote reminds us that the ‘mystery’ of Phobos is not an innocent puzzle but a narrative constructed to obscure deeper truths about power, knowledge, and who gets to define the cosmos.