First Sounds on Mars Heard by Perseverance Rover!

 

many of us are familiar with the site of  mars whether it be from revolutionary  photography by nasa  or by reading matt damon survive on the  big red planet using nothing but pure  science  however what does the surface of mars  sound like  welcome to fact nominal today we're  dusting off our space microphones in  first noises heard on mars so let's jump  right in  um i invite you now to if you would like  to close your eyes and just imagine  yourself  sitting on the surface of mars and  listening to to the surroundings  if i could have the first one please  recently on 18 february 2021 nasa  successfully landed its perseverance  rover on the surface of the red planet  this rover shares a lot with its big  sister curiosity  although it sports some fancy new  high-tech upgrades including 19 cameras  seven payload instruments two  microphones and an experimental mini  helicopter dubbed  ingenuity which may end up being the  first powered flight on another planet  today however it's those microphones  that take the center stage  on february 23rd less than a week after  landing  the rover recorded an audio snippet from  the surface of mars  while we may not have any aural proof of  aliens yet  we do have an eerily earth-sounding  recording of the martian wind as well as  the wearing noise of the rover itself  unfortunately one of the two microphones  failed upon descent  but the second was able to retrieve  these monumental recordings  the first ever sounds heard on another  planet  it's curious to think about the  scientific importance of these  recordings  why is nasa making such a big deal out  of them  imagine yourself sitting on the surface  of mars and listening to the  surroundings  dave gruel lead engineer for the rover's  camera and microphone subsystem  said during a news briefing it's cool  really neat  overwhelming if you will girl went on to  say that the recordings  also give a chance for those who are  visually impaired to get a feel for what  it would be like to be standing on the  red planet  preferably with a helmet but the cool  factor of these sounds aren't the only  reason that nasa is making a huge deal  out of them  they mean that in the future we may hear  more sounds from mars that may be unique  to the planet  such as its infamous storms and the  sounds of the perseverance rover  as it rides along the martian surface as  a bonus  regular recordings can test how well the  rover is functioning  although nasa hasn't exactly built these  microphones to last  they predict that they'll fail before  the mission is complete  what's even more special about  perseverance's efforts is that it's not  the first attempt that nasa has made to  record sounds on mars  the mars polar lander failed and the  phoenix lander had a microphone that was  never turned on  technically in 2018 the insight mars  lander picked up some sounds  through its air pressure sensor and  seismometer  but this is the first instance of an  actual microphone recording  sounds directly now perseverance has its  sights set on hunting for signs of  ancient life in the gizero crater  and hopes to be able to send samples  from mars back to earth  within a decade