Perseverance records the first ever sounds from Mars

Date:
April 1, 2022
Source:
CNRS
Summary:
NASA's Perseverance rover, which has been surveying the surface
of Mars since February 2021, has for the first time recorded the
acoustic environment of the Red Planet.



FULL STORY ========================================================================== NASA's Perseverance rover, which has been surveying the surface of
Mars since February 2021, has for the first time recorded the acoustic environment of the Red Planet. An international team1 led by an academic
at the University of Toulouse III -- Paul Sabatier and including
scientists from the CNRS and ISAE- SUPAERO, carried out an analysis of
these sounds, which were obtained using the SuperCam instrument built
in France under the authority of the French space agency CNES. Their
findings are published on 1st April 2022 in Nature.


==========================================================================
For 50 years, interplanetary probes have returned thousands of striking
images of the surface of Mars, but never a single sound. Now, NASA's Perseverance mission has put an end to this deafening silence by recording
the first ever Martian sounds. The scientific team1 for the French-US
SuperCam2 instrument installed on Perseverance was convinced that the
study of the soundscape of Mars could advance our understanding of
the planet. This scientific challenge led them to design a microphone
dedicated to the exploration of Mars, at ISAE- SUPAERO in Toulouse,
France.

Perseverance first recorded sounds from the Red Planet on February 19,
2021, the day after its arrival. These sounds fall within the human
audible spectrum, between 20 Hz and 20 kHz. First of all, they reveal that
Mars is quiet, in fact so quiet that on several occasions the scientists thought the microphone was no longer working. It is obvious that, apart
from the wind, natural sound sources are rare.

In addition to this investigation, the scientists focused on the sounds generated by the rover itself3, including the shock waves produced by
the impact of the SuperCam laser on rocks, and flights by the Ingenuity helicopter.

By studying the propagation on Mars of these sounds, whose behaviour
is very well well understood on Earth, they were able to accurately characterise the acoustic properties of the Martian atmosphere.

The researchers show that the speed of sound is lower on Mars than on
Earth: 240 m/s, as compared to 340 m/s on our planet. However, the
most surprising thing is that it turns out that there are actually
two speeds of sound on Mars, one for high-pitched sounds and one for
low frequencies4. Sound attenuation is greater on Mars than on Earth, especially for high frequencies, which, unlike low frequencies, are
attenuated very quickly, even at short distances. All these various
factors would make it difficult for two people standing only five metres
apart to have a conversation. They are due to the composition of the
Martian atmosphere (96% CO2,compared to 0.04% on Earth) and the very
low atmospheric surface pressure (170 times lower than on Earth).

After one year of the mission, a total of five hours of recordings of the acoustic environment have been obtained. In-depth analysis of these sounds
has made the sound generated by the turbulence of the Martian atmosphere perceptible. The study of this turbulence, at scales 1000 times smaller
than anything previously known, should enhance our knowledge of the
interaction of the atmosphere with the surface of Mars. In the future,
the use of other robots equipped with microphones could help us to better understand planetary atmospheres.

Footnotes 1 Scientists from the following laboratories also took part:
Institut de Recherche en Astrophysique et Plane'tologie (Universite'
Toulouse III -- Paul Sabatier/CNRS/CNES), Institut de Me'canique des
Fluides de Toulouse (Universite' Toulouse III -- Paul Sabatier/CNRS/INP), Laboratoire d'Etudes Spatiales et d'Instrumentation en Astrophysique (Observatoire de Paris-PSL/ CNRS/Sorbonne Universite'/Universite'
Paris Cite'), Laboratoire Atmosphe`res, Milieux, Observations
Spatiales (CNRS/Sorbonne Universite'/Universite' de Versailles
St Quentin-en-Yvelines), Institut de Mine'ralogie, de Physique des
Mate'riaux et de Cosmochimie (CNRS/MNHN/Sorbonne Universite'), Laboratoire Plane'tologie et Ge'osciences (CNRS/Universite' Nantes/Universite'
Angers), Institut de Plane'tologie et Astrophysique de Grenoble (CNRS/Universite' Grenoble Alpes), Centre Lasers Intenses et Applications (CNRS/CEA/Universite' de Bordeaux), Laboratoire d'Astrophysique de
Bordeaux (CNRS /Universite' de Bordeaux), Institut d'Astrophysique
Spatiale (CNRS/Universite' Paris Saclay), Laboratoire de Ge'ologie de
Lyon : Terre, Plane`tes, Environnement (CNRS/ENS Lyon/Universite' Claude Bernard), and Laboratoire GeoRessources (CNRS/ Universite' de Lorraine).

2 SuperCam was jointly developed by LANL (Los Alamos National Laboratory,
USA) and a consortium of laboratories affiliated to the CNRS and French universities and research institutions. The CNES is responsible to NASA
for the French contribution to SuperCam.

3 The microphone also acts as a stethoscope for the rover since it
provides an acoustic diagnosis of its health.

4Approximately 240 m/s for frequencies below 240 Hz, and 250 m/s above

========================================================================== Story Source: Materials provided by CNRS. Note: Content may be edited
for style and length.


========================================================================== Related Multimedia:
* First_Audio_Recording_of_Sounds_on_Mars ========================================================================== Journal Reference:
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In situ recording of Mars soundscape. Nature, 2022; DOI:
10.1038/s41586- 022-04679-0 ==========================================================================

Link to news story: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/04/220401122138.htm

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