This raises the intriguing prospect that Phobos may actually be littered with Martian material.

“So, with this mission, you could get two for one,” said Dr Ball.

“When there’s a large impact on Mars, ejecta gets thrown up, and some of that can hit Phobos. Over billions of years, Phobos should have accumulated some fraction of Martian soil in its surface.

Dr Perper said that could take from three to five weeks.

“It is a medical puzzle which we have to resolve to get a comprehensive picture of what happened,” he said.

Custody battle

He said DNA samples had been taken from the late model.

“In every case in America, the examiner’s office takes samples,” he said.