While there’s a “deep silence” on Mars, NASA’s Perseverance rover has picked up a variety of interesting sounds on its excursions, and a preliminary acoustic assessment based on recordings has shown that sound travels more slowly on Mars than on Earth.
A global team of scientists explains how fast sound travels through the thin, mostly carbon dioxide environment on Mars, what Mars would sound like to human ears, and how scientists could use audio recordings to investigate subtle changes in air pressure on another globe — and to gauge the rover’s well-being.
The rover’s “puff, whir, zap” instruments, the rover’s mechanical whine and clicks in a light Martian breeze, the hum of rotors on Ingenuity, the Mars helicopter and the crackling bang of a rock-zapping laser can all be heard.
“It’s a totally new sense of research that we’ve never used on Mars,” said Sylvestre Maurice, an astronomer at the University of Toulouse in France and the study’s lead author. “I expect a whole host of new discoveries to emerge, using the ambiance as a source of sound and as a means of transmission.”
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Perseverance’s SuperCam microphone, located on top of the rover’s mast, was used to record many of the sounds 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 tones travel at about 854 kilometers per second (240 meters per second) on Mars, while higher tones travel about 900 kilometers per hour (250 meters per second).
#Did you know†
Listen intently to new sounds of Mars recorded by NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover, including puffs and pings from a rover tool, light Martian wind, the hum 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) Apr 2, 2022
Is audio recorded on #Mars Reveals two speeds of sound
After #NASA‘s #Perseverance #robber landed on #Mars in February 2021, the two microphones started recording, making #scientists to hear what it’s like on the #redditPlanet for the first time😏 pic.twitter.com/oV8L3UavLS— Gajalakshmi SenthilKumar (@GajalakshmiSen) Apr 4, 2022
According to NASAthe fluctuating sound speeds of the Purple Planet are caused by the thin, cold carbon dioxide atmosphere.
Another effect of the thin atmosphere is that sounds only travel a short distance, while higher notes barely travel. After NASA missions, in conjunction with ESA (European Space Agency), spacecraft would be sent to Mars to collect these packaged samples from the surface and bring them back to Earth for further analysis.
Cover Image: Unsplash