A NASA rover ambling over the crimson desert planet for the previous 4 years has been recording audio of Mars.
On this alien world 156 million miles away in house, even the on a regular basis whispers of wind and mechanical components are unique to human ears. Scientists say that is as a result of the Martian ambiance is about 1 % as dense as Earth’s, which alters the amount, pace, and traits of sound.
The way to describe what Perseverance has heard at Jezero crater?
Nicely, it would not not sound just like the eerie ambient noise of Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A House Odyssey, however you’ll be able to hear for your self.
Like an aspiring DJ or singer-songwriter, Perseverance has a Soundcloud account, the place folks can expertise the most recent Martian tracks. NASA shared this week among the unusual audio the rover has captured. You could find a sampling additional down on this story.
Credit score: NASA / JPL-Caltech illustration
When the rover touched down on Mars in 2021, it didn’t simply convey cameras, drills, and tubes for rock samples. It additionally carried two microphones — nothing particular, simply a few off-the-shelf units anybody may purchase on-line. The one modification NASA made was to connect little grids on the finish of the mics to guard them from Martian mud.
One of many microphones, mounted on the rover’s head, is named the SuperCam and has recorded a lot of the audio; one other is connected to the physique. What they’ve picked up is altering the way in which scientists take into consideration the Pink Planet.
That is the primary time humanity has ever been capable of hearken to the din of one other world.
Mashable Gentle Velocity
“We’ve all seen these beautiful images that we get from Mars,” mentioned Nina Lanza, a Los Alamos Nationwide Laboratory scientist, in a NASA video, “but having sound to be able to add to those images, it makes me feel like I’m almost right there on the surface.”
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NASA shared Martian audio within the above put up on X.
Researchers revealed the primary research of acoustics on Mars within the journal Nature, based mostly on Perseverance’s recordings, in 2022. Apparently, the Pink Planet is a a lot quieter place than initially thought, and never simply because it is unpopulated.
It’s so silent, actually, there was a time the rover workforce believed the mics had stopped working. However Perseverance simply wasn’t getting a lot materials from its environment. That is largely resulting from Mars’ low-atmospheric strain, although the strain can differ with the seasons.
The workforce learning these sounds discovered that Mars’ skinny air, composed principally of carbon dioxide, makes sound waves behave in another way. On Earth, sound travels at roughly 767 mph. On Mars, deeper pitches transfer at about 537 mph, with increased ones touring a bit quicker, at 559 mph.
The skinny ambiance additionally causes sound to drop off shortly. A sound that could possibly be heard from 200 ft away on Earth falls silent after 30 ft on Mars. Larger-pitched tones have a good shorter vary.
The microphones mounted to Perseverance are off-the-shelf units anybody may purchase off the web.
Credit score: NASA / JPL-Caltech
“Sounds on Earth have very rich harmonics. You can hear multiple frequencies. It gets a really nice depth to the sound,” mentioned Justin Maki, a NASA scientist, in a video. “On Mars, the atmosphere attenuates a lot of those higher frequencies. So you tend to hear the lower frequencies, and it’s a much more isolated sound, a little more muted than the sounds we hear on Earth.”
With this knowledge, scientists have realized that a few of their earlier fashions for the way they thought sound ought to transfer on Mars missed the mark.
“The Martian atmosphere can propagate sound a lot further than we thought it could,” Lanza mentioned.
Translation: The Pink Planet can actually carry a tune.
