Perseverance captures the sound of creativity on Mars

Since then, the mission’s engineers haven’t been sure they will be able to capture the sound of the flight Perseverance was parked 80 meters from the take-off and landing site cleverness.

Mars’ atmosphere is roughly one 1% of the density of our planet, making everything quieter than what is on Earth.

“It’s a very good surprise.”David Memon, professor of planetary science at the Higher Institute of Aeronautics and Space (ISAE-SUPAERO) in Toulouse, France, and scientific director of the SuperCam Mars microphone, said.

“We did tests and simulations that told us that the microphone will hardly pick up the sounds from the helicopter, because the Martian atmosphere severely limits the spread of sound,” he added.

The SuperCam is an advanced onboard persistence instrument that makes laser bursts on rocks from a distance for study, along with a device called a spectrometer, Its chemical composition.

It also contains a microphone for recording sounds, which provides additional information on the physical properties of the rocks such as their hardness.

Likewise, Maimon explained, the new flight registration cleverness “It would be a goldmine for our understanding of the Martian atmosphere.”.

Plus there is less volume, Sounds emitted on Mars travel more slowly than on Earth due to cold temperatures, About -63 ° C at the surface.

Thus, the speed of sound on this planet is about 240 meters per second, compared to about 340 meters per second on Earth.

The Martian atmosphere, made up of 96% carbon dioxide, tends to absorb high-pitched sounds, so only low-pitched sounds can travel long distances.

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The NASA The sound, which was recorded mono, was made easier to hear by isolating noise from helicopter blades at 84 Hz and then reducing the sound to frequencies below 80 and above 90 Hz. Then he increased the size of the remaining signal.

Soren Madsen, Director of Development at Perseverance at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, He said the recording was an example of how mission tools can work together to improve our understanding of the red planet.

In the video, like a file cleverness It moves away from the rover and out of the tire, the pitch decreases, and when it comes back, the pitch increases.

This is known as Doppler effect provides an additional element to confirm the helicopter’s flight path when outside the visual range.

cleverness It made its first engine-controlled flight to another planet on April 19, and it rose a fifth time on Friday.

The type of recognition that it does cleverness It could also be useful someday for human expeditions, searching for best paths for explorers and reaching places that would not otherwise be possible.