Space prang of cosmic proportions blamed for giving Mars its moons

Space needs "safe spaces"

"Mars hit a massive protoplanet about a third of its size"

Rank patriarchic male aggression and nowhere to hide!

And Earth was probably hit by something Mars sized. The early solar system sounds like it was a metaphorical bar room brawl.

Conjecture

All this is conjecture, of course. If you're allowed to guess at the original conditions, unsupported, you can come up with an infinite number of theories about almost anything.

" ...Phobos will suffer the same fate in a few million years, and is already cracking up under the strain."

Well, who wouldn't?

I wouldn't depend on JAXA...

...they're making rocket science look every bit as hard as it is.

_{I say this as a member of the nation that built Beagle 2.}

Interesting stuff. Speculative on the one hand, but if they make first testable predictions we can certainly make progress. It would be absolutely great if JAXA pulled this mission off.

Did

the Martians know it was coming?

Unclear

To me the video shows a whole lot of material blasting off into space and a whole lot of material falling back to the planet, only very little of it goes into something resembling an orbit, but none of it seems stable to me. To me as an outsider this theory seems unlikely, so we'll see what the sample gathering turns up!