While there is a “deep quiet” on Mars, the NASA rover Perseverance has caught a variety of interesting noises throughout its excursions, and a preliminary acoustic review based on recordings has shown that sound travels slower on Mars than on Earth.
A global team of scientists explains how quickly sound travels through the thin, mostly carbon dioxide ambiance on Mars, how Mars would sound to human ears, and how scientists might use audio recordings to investigate subtle air-pressure changes on another globe — and to measure the rover’s well-being.
The rover’s instruments “puff, whir, zap,” the rover’s mechanical whine and click on in a light Martian breeze, the hum of rotors on Ingenuity, the Mars helicopter, and the crackling hit of a rock-zapping laser can all be heard.
“It’s a totally new sense of research we’ve never utilized on Mars,” said Sylvestre Maurice, an astronomer at the University of Toulouse in France and the study’s primary author. “I expect a slew of new discoveries to emerge, employing the ambiance as a source of sound and a means of transmission.”
SEE ALSO: Saturn Is Eating Off Its Own Rings, Says Scientists
The microphone on Perseverance’s SuperCam, situated on the pinnacle of the rover’s mast, was used to record many of the noises in the study, which was published in the journal Nature. On Earth, sounds travel at an average speed of 1,234 kilometers per hour (343 meters per second). Low-pitched noises travel at roughly 854 kilometers per second (240 meters per second) on Mars, whereas higher-pitched sounds travel about 900 kilometers per hour (250 meters per
#DidYouKnow?
Listen closely to new sounds from Mars recorded by NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover, including puffs and pings from a rover tool, light Martian wind, the whirring of the agency’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter and laser zaps.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU/MSSS/LANL/CNES/IRAP pic.twitter.com/pjCmCjHXOT
— Tom Fulop-Lover of all things SPACE 🇦🇺 (@TomFulop) April 2, 2022
Ist Audio Recorded On #Mars Reveals Two Speeds Of Sound
After #NASA’s #Perseverance #Rover landed on #Mars in Feb 2021, its two microphones started recording, allowing #scientists to hear what it is like on the #redditPlanet for the first time😏 pic.twitter.com/oV8L3UavLS
— Gajalakshmi SenthilKumar (@GajalakshmiSen) April 4, 2022
According to NASA, the Purple Planet’s fluctuating sound speeds are caused by the thin, cold carbon dioxide atmosphere.
Another effect of the thin ambiance is that sounds only travel a short distance, while higher-pitched tones barely travel at all Following NASA missions, in collaboration with ESA (European Space Agency), spacecraft would be sent to Mars to collect these wrapped samples from the surface and bring them to Earth for further analysis
Cov
