New audio recordings from the Perseverance rover on the planet Mars show that the winds are different from those on Earth.
The Perseverance rover has been on the Martian surface since February 18, 2021, and has since helped to further understand the composition of Mars using tools never before seen on a distant planet, including the rock collector.
In addition, for the first time NASA has been able to record and send sounds from the surface of Mars to Earth . Sounds of the wind, sandstorms and even how the rover travels over the Martian soils sounds. These sounds were picked up by a series of microphones implemented in the Perseverance rover systems .
The NASA says that microphones are commercial, that anyone on Earth can get, there is no complexity behind and are located in the body and the rover’s mast.
Our scientist on Mars
The microphone body on the Perseverance rover was provided by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory , while the SuperCam instrument and its microphone were delivered by Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico.
There is another aspect of space exploration that could benefit from an audio dimension: spacecraft maintenance. Engineers use cameras to monitor tire wear on the Curiosity rover and dust accumulating on InSight’s solar panels. With microphones, they could also check the performance of a spacecraft in the same way that mechanics could listen to the engine of a car.