NASA REVEALS New Mysterious Sound of Surface of Mars

 

being the fourth planet from the sun mars fell nearly short of everything that earth is it could have been a habitable world but unfortunately lost its atmosphere and could barely hold on to the heat or the water that is either trapped in its polar caps and perhaps under its surface the universe may have given up on mars but we humans still think it's redeemable

 this obsession has led us to send rovers on the planet to take images as well as microphones to listen to what the planet is trying to tell us welcome to fact nominal and in today's article we will take a closer look at some of the most exciting findings and real sounds captured from one of our most intriguing neighbors the red planet mars [Music]

 ever since its discovery the planet mars has completely captivated humankind no other planet in our solar system stands out like mars its reddish hue is quite the opposite of its shimmering neighbors

 after the invention of telescopes we were granted a close look at the planet and the fascinating landscape and formations which gave us a clue that the planet had formerly been a bountiful world that could have possibly held life just like our own planet earth but somewhere down the line it underwent a dramatic transformation that made it the toxic barren land that it is now scientists astronomers and various space agencies have set out on a journey to uncover all of its secrets ever since the 1960s we have sent dozens of spacecraft with the sole purpose of studying the planet the thin atmosphere does make it slightly tricky and many landing attempts in the past have actually failed

 the early missions were simply flybys that snapped up as many images of the planet as they possibly could and later with the advance in technology and research probes landers and rovers were finally sent into mars nasa's mariner 4 spacecraft brought us the first ever images of the martian world followed by the soviet mission mars 3.

 viking 1 and 2 from nasa were notably the most successful in operating on the planet's surface and sent back valuable data

 the mars pathfinder mission was the first ever to put a rover named sojourner on the planet other notable spacecraft like nasa's maven orbiter

 mars odyssey and india's mars orbiter mission are continually snapping images from the planet's orbit you know the planet is important when nasa has an entire space program solely dedicated to just that one planet the mars exploration program or map is just that as a part of nasa's mars 2020 mission the little car-sized rover is called perseverance or just percy manufactured by the jet propulsion laboratories it was launched on july 30th 2020 at exactly 1150 utc the rover was a slightly upgraded version of the curiosity rover with seven primary payload instruments and two microphones

 in addition it also has a mini helicopter ingenuity the main goals for the rover was to identify the ancient martian environments that could possibly support life collecting rock and soil samples and testing oxygen production from the atmosphere on mars in order to prepare for future explorations on the planet but with humans setting foot on the red planet

 the perseverance rover successfully fulfilled all it was sent to do and as of now is still active and has been on mars for over 295 days but the rover brought us something that has never been done before and will forever go down in history to be the first to do so

 real sounds from the martian planet [Music]

 we've all seen the images of the planet with its red barren land and abundance of rocks but what does mars actually sound like

 is it bustling with sounds like planet earth or is it dead silent due to lack of life and noisy humans the perseverance spacecraft is the first to record sounds from the red planet using two dpa omnidirectional microphones both of which are actually commercially available and if you have twenty four hundred dollars to spare you can even pick up one for yourself but thanks to these little microphones everyone has a chance to listen to the amazing sounds of mars while this is not exactly the first mission that has attempted such a feat the mars polar lander in 1998 actually did just that but all data was lost during a failed landing attempt on mars the microphone on the phoenix lander had to be left off due to concerns about interference and technical problems so this time around the perseverance rover has really done something right one of the microphone rides on the side of the rover's chassis while the second sits right on top of the mast as more of a compliment to the super cam laser instrument's investigations of the atmosphere and rocks with the help of these the perseverance rover has recorded nearly five hours of martian wind gusts rover wheels crunching over gravel and motors whirring as the spacecraft moves its arm around

 the sounds are so incredible that it really transports the listener right there to the red planet batishid a planetary scientist who actually studies the data collected from the microphones at the institute of research in astrophysics and planetology in france said

 it's like you're really standing there [Music]

 you can hear the wide array of martian sounds the occasional whipping sounds from the wind then the burbling low murmurs

 but what about if humans were to ever be on mars what would we sound like according to nasa you would sound pretty much the same but maybe a quieter and muffled version of yourself you would also more likely have to wait longer to hear what is being said than you would on earth but as for the more higher pitched sounds like bells or chimes or even bird songs those would almost be inaudible on mars

 in regards to the use of microphones in space batishid said martian sounds have strong base 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 and he may actually be right the two microphones on the six wheeled spacecraft have completely added a new dissension of the way scientists and engineers will explore the red planet from now on

 some of the recordings that have been obtained are actually able to teach scientists about changes in the planet's atmosphere as sound travels through vibrations in the air [Music]

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 the microphone on the supercam has been strategically placed so that it's able to monitor the micro turbulence or minute shifts in the air and it is a great complement to the rover's dedicated wind sensors which form a part of its atmospheric tools called meta mars environmental dynamics analyzer the sensors on meta sample the wind speed temperature pressure at one to two times per second for up to two hours at a time

 while on the other hand you have the supercams microphone that is able to provide similar information at a rate of 20 000 times per second over several minutes

 not only that the microphone also allows for researchers to really understand how sound propagates on mars owing to the fact that the planet's atmosphere is less dense than the earth's scientists are aware that the more high-pitched sounds in particular would be harder to hear some scientists were convinced that they wouldn't even be able to hear anything at all but were left surprised when the microphone picked up the ingenuity helicopter's rotors during its fourth flight from a distance of 262 feet or 80 meters

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 here you can hear the low frequency thrumming and whirring of the ingenuity helicopter's rotor blades it might be faint but it's there alright it actually allowed them to rule out two to three models that had been developed in order to anticipate how sound propagates on the planet superchem scientist nina lanza states that sound on mars carries much faster than they had previously anticipated and that is very good news as it will help further studies immensely

 it's also important to note how useful the microphones have been as they are also able to keep a check on spacecraft maintenance

 this is a key aspect that could help avoid so many accidents and technical errors and possibly keep the rover on mars for far longer besides the engineers checking in on the wheel wear of the rover through cameras they could now also regularly check on the spacecraft's performance and note down any discrepancies just the way a mechanic would listen to a car's engine we have no doubt we will be hearing all kinds of things from mars very soon [Music]

 nasa scientists are hoping to send humans to mars by the 2030s with their space capsule orion which will presumably be able to ferry human beings to the moon and beyond there is also a significant effort from time magazine's person of the year elon musk and his ambitious private spacecraft company spacex who has a deep desire to build cities on mars he believes humanity must become a multi-planetary species in order to survive

 he aims to have 1 million people living on mars within the next 100 years as for india mangalyan ii by india space research organization is in the works for 2024

 and nasa is now teaming up with the japanese space agency canadian space agency and italian space agency to send an orbiting craft to map out the water ice resources on mars the rosalind franklin rover formerly the exomars rover is a robotic mars rover part of the joint international exomars program led by the european space agency and the russian rus cosmo state corporation

 what has been deemed as an astrobiology lab on wheels is set for launch in 2022.

 this decades in development program that has suffered a series of setbacks may be scientists best shot at getting a definitive answer about whether there was ever life on mars and what its fate can tell us about our own planet so what do you think where should nasa send a rover to next let us know in the comments don't forget to smash the like button and subscribe to our channel for more space articles like this thanks for reading we'll see you next time