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Updated October 19th, 2021 at 15:42 IST

NASA's Perseverance rover sends magnificent 5-hour audio recording from Mars

NASA's Perseverance rover has sent a five-hour recording of the Martian surface where you can hear the rustling winds and the whirring motors of the rover.

Reported by: Harsh Vardhan
NASA
Image: NASA | Image:self
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NASA's Perseverance rover, which has spent over a year now on the red planet, has again sent magnificent sounds from Mars. Equipped with two dedicated microphones, the rover has changed the way scientists explore the red planet by beaming back sounds of rustling winds and rover wheels crunching over the gravel. This new recording offers the same sound acquired in the span of five hours and you can hear Perseverance's turning wheels, blowing winds and motors whirring as the spacecraft moves its arm. Give it a listen here. 

Growing trend of using space microphones

As mentioned earlier, the use of space microphones is changing how scientists explore alien territories. The Martian rover is equipped with two off-the-shelf commercially available microphones and also is the first rover to have dedicated mics for recording otherworldly sounds. The first mic is located on one side of the rover while the second mic acts as a complement to the SuperCam laser instrument’s investigations of rocks and the atmosphere.

Talking about the advantages of space mics, Baptiste Chide, a planetary scientist from France's L’Institut de Recherche en Astrophysique et Planétologie said, "It’s like you’re really standing there". He further added, "Martian sounds have strong bass vibrations, so when you put on headphones, you can really feel it. I think microphones will be an important asset to future Mars and solar system science.”

Offered by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) and Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) in New Mexico, the two microphones collectively study Martian rocks and soil after the Supercam mounted on the rover's top zaps them with a laser, then analyses the resulting vapor with a camera. NASA explains that because the laser pulses up to hundreds of times per target, Perseverance gets the opportunity to capture the sound of those zaps.

How is the sound useful?

As per NASA, some of those recordings are teaching scientists about changes in the planet’s atmosphere while also allowing for research on how sound propagates on Mars. Besides, the agency believes that the audio dimension could also benefit another dimension of space exploration and that is spacecraft maintenance. By utilising the sounds from the rover, they could also check a spacecraft’s performance the way mechanics might listen to a car engine.

Image: NASA

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Published October 19th, 2021 at 15:42 IST

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