• About
  • FAQ
  • Glossary
  • Shop
  • Cart
  • Checkout
Tours in Space
  • Home
  • Preparation
    • Mental Preparation
    • Physical Preparation
    • Weightlessness Training
    • What to Pack
    • What Not to Pack
  • Vehicles
  • Excursions
    • Spacewalks
  • Pricing
    • Space Travel Insurance
  • News
  • Contact Us
No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • Preparation
    • Mental Preparation
    • Physical Preparation
    • Weightlessness Training
    • What to Pack
    • What Not to Pack
  • Vehicles
  • Excursions
    • Spacewalks
  • Pricing
    • Space Travel Insurance
  • News
  • Contact Us
No Result
View All Result
Tours in Space
No Result
View All Result
Home Uncategorized

Hear sounds from Mars captured by Perseverance Rover

Ensign Grainger by Ensign Grainger
October 19, 2021
in Uncategorized
0
Hear sounds from Mars captured by Perseverance Rover
191
SHARES
1.5k
VIEWS
Share on FacebookShare on Twitter

Thanks to two microphones aboard NASA’s Perseverance rover, the mission has recorded nearly five hours of Martian wind gusts, rover wheels crunching over gravel, and motors whirring as the spacecraft moves its arm. These sounds allow scientists and engineers to experience the Red Planet in new ways – and everyone is invited to listen in.

“It’s like you’re really standing there,” said Baptiste Chide, a planetary scientist who studies data from the microphones at L’Institut de Recherche en Astrophysique et Planetologie in France. “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.”

Perseverance is the first spacecraft to record the sound of the Red Planet using dedicated microphones – both of which were commercially available, off-the-shelf devices. One rides on the side of the rover’s chassis. The second mic sits on Perseverance’s mast as a complement to the SuperCam laser instrument’s investigations of rocks and the atmosphere.

The body mic was provided by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, while the SuperCam instrument and its microphone were provided by the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) in New Mexico and a consortium of French research laboratories under the auspices of the Centre National d’Etudes Spatiales (CNES).

The Era of Space Microphones

SuperCam studies rocks and soil by zapping them with a laser, then analyzing the resulting vapor with a camera. Because the laser pulses up to hundreds of times per target, opportunities to capture the sound of those zaps quickly add up: the microphone has already recorded more than 25,000 laser shots.

Some of those recordings are teaching scientists about changes in the planet’s atmosphere. After all, sound travels through vibrations in the air. From its perch on Perseverance’s mast, the SuperCam mic is ideally located for monitoring “microturbulence” – minute shifts in the air – and complements the rover’s dedicated wind sensors, which are part of a suite of atmospheric tools called MEDA, short for the Mars Environmental Dynamics Analyzer.

MEDA’s sensors sample the wind’s speed, pressure, and temperature one to two times per second for up to two hours at a time. SuperCam’s microphone, on the other hand, can provide similar information at a rate of 20,000 times per second over several minutes.

“It’s kind of like comparing a magnifying glass to a microscope with 100 times magnification,” said MEDA’s principal investigator, Jose Rodriguez-Manfredi of the Centro de Astrobiologia (CAB) at the Instituto Nacional de Tecnica Aeroespacial in Madrid. “From the weather scientist’s point of view, each perspective – detail and context – complements one another.”

The microphone also allows for research on how sound propagates on Mars. Because the planet’s atmosphere is much less dense than Earth’s, scientists knew higher-pitched sounds in particular would be hard to hear. In fact, a few scientists – unsure if they’d hear anything at all – were surprised when the microphone picked up the Ingenuity helicopter’s buzzing rotors during its fourth flight, on April 30, from a distance of 262 feet (80 meters).

Information from the helicopter audio enabled researchers to eliminate two of three models developed to anticipate how sound propagates on Mars.

“Sound on Mars carries much farther than we thought,” said Nina Lanza, a SuperCam scientist who works with the microphone data at LANL. “It shows you just how important it is to do field science.”

Sound Check

There’s another aspect of space exploration that could benefit from an audio dimension: spacecraft maintenance. Engineers use cameras to monitor the wheel wear on Curiosity rover and dust accumulating on InSight’s solar panels. With microphones, they could also check a spacecraft’s performance the way mechanics might listen to a car engine.

The Perseverance team is amassing loads of recordings from the rover’s chassis mic, which is well-positioned to listen to its wheels and other internal systems. While there aren’t enough recordings yet to detect any changes, over time, engineers may be able to pore over that data and discern subtle differences, like additional electric current going to a particular wheel. This would add to the ways they already monitor the spacecraft’s health.

“We would love to listen to these sounds regularly,” said Vandi Verma, Perseverance’s chief engineer for robotic operations at JPL. “We routinely listen for changes in sound patterns on our test rover here on Earth, which can indicate there’s an issue that needs attention.”

Related Links

Mars 2020 Perseverance

Mars News and Information at MarsDaily.com
Lunar Dreams and more



Thanks for being here;

We need your help. The SpaceDaily news network continues to grow but revenues have never been harder to maintain.

With the rise of Ad Blockers, and Facebook – our traditional revenue sources via quality network advertising continues to decline. And unlike so many other news sites, we don’t have a paywall – with those annoying usernames and passwords.

Our news coverage takes time and effort to publish 365 days a year.

If you find our news sites informative and useful then please consider becoming a regular supporter or for now make a one off contribution.


SpaceDaily Contributor

$5 Billed Once

credit card or paypal


SpaceDaily Monthly Supporter
$5 Billed Monthly

paypal only



Related articles

Dust bedevils Perseverance with damaging winds

Dust bedevils Perseverance with damaging winds

January 29, 2023
Searching for buried treasure on Mars with RIMFAX

Searching for buried treasure on Mars with RIMFAX

January 28, 2023


MARSDAILY
NASA’s Perseverance rover cameras capture Mars like never before

Pasadena CA (JPL) Sep 24, 2021


Scientists tap into an array of imagers aboard the six-wheeled explorer to get a big picture of the Red Planet.

NASA’s Perseverance rover has been exploring Jezero Crater for more than 217 Earth days (211 Martian days, or sols), and the dusty rocks there are beginning to tell their story – about a volatile young Mars flowing with lava and water.

That story, stretching billions of years into the past, is unfolding thanks in large part to the seven powerful science cameras aboard Perseverance. … read more


Tags: Mars
Share76Tweet48

Related Posts

Dust bedevils Perseverance with damaging winds

Dust bedevils Perseverance with damaging winds

by Ensign Grainger
January 29, 2023
0

Scientists working on the Perseverance Mars 2020 rover mission have uncovered new insights about dust devils on the Red Planet,...

Searching for buried treasure on Mars with RIMFAX

Searching for buried treasure on Mars with RIMFAX

by Ensign Grainger
January 28, 2023
0

What do the Perseverance rover and Superman have in common? They both can "see" through solid rock! Superman has X-ray...

Aiming for the Triple Junction: Sols 3723-3724

Aiming for the Triple Junction: Sols 3723-3724

by Ensign Grainger
January 27, 2023
0

Your blogger is a little tired right now... I am just back from a field trip to the salt flats...

Perseverance marks 1 Martian Year at Jezero

Perseverance marks 1 Martian Year at Jezero

by Ensign Grainger
January 26, 2023
0

Perseverance and the team recently celebrated one Martian year (668 sols or 687 Earth days) on the Red Planet while...

Scientists choose first Mars samples worthy of return to Earth

Sol 3721: Wrapping up at the Encanto Drill Site

by Ensign Grainger
January 25, 2023
0

Despite giving it the "old college try," Curiosity's attempt to drill into the Marker Band at the "Encanto" site did...

Load More

Toursinspace.com is private publisher of all things space, but in particular — the commercialization of space travel and future tours in space made available to civilians.

Categories

  • Excursions
  • Kepler Mission
  • NASA
  • NASA Breaking News
  • Physical Preparation
  • Preparation
  • Space News
  • Space Station News
  • Spacewalks
  • Uncategorized
  • Weightlessness Training
  • What Not to Pack
  • What to Pack

Tags

axiom space Curiosity Emirates Mars Mission EMM Jezero Crater Mars Mars 2020 Mars Exploration Program Advisory Group Mars Helicopter MEPAG Percy Perseverance Rover Red Planet Sarah Al Amiri Sky Crane space adventures space travel SpaceX UAE Hope Spacecraft yusaku maezawa

Newsletter

© 2013-2021 toursinspace.com

No Result
View All Result
  • Contact Us
  • Homepages

© 2013-2021 toursinspace.com