3/4/2022–|Last update: 3/4/202211:22 PM (Mecca)
A NASA mobile probe has revealed an astonishing secret about a voice on Mars.
The mobile probe “Persefrance” landed a little more than a year ago on the surface of the red planet, and as soon as the probe landed, it sent the first audio recording in the history of space exploration to Mars.
For 50 years, the planet’s exploration vehicles have sent thousands of images back to Earth.
The human ear can hear the frequencies of those sounds, and behind the roar of the vehicle, a gust of wind can be heard in this recording.
And this first audio recording showed the presence of previously unknown things on Mars, according to a study published in the scientific journal Nature last Friday.
Since Mars is very quiet most of the time, the rover was fitted with two sources to pick up sounds before sending it to Mars.
Listen to the muffled hums as I work on Mars. Scientists used my recordings to study how fast sound travels through the thin, mostly CO2 Martian atmosphere, and confirmed that the speed of sound is slower on the Red Planet than on Earth. https://t.co/q3SwJwRjcr pic.twitter.com/NyHjVj9FAh
– NASA’s Perseverance Mars Rover (@NASAPersevere) April 1, 2022
The researchers were able to measure the speed of sound in the field, which is 240 meters per second, which is slower than the speed of sound on Earth, which is 340 meters per second.
It is not surprising that the speed of sound is slower, given the composition of the atmosphere of Mars, as carbon dioxide makes up 96%, while it is 0.004% in the Earth’s atmosphere, in addition to other factors.
The scientists also benefited from the work of a small helicopter attached to the spacecraft, and from laser shots that directed it at the Martian rocks to examine their chemical composition through the sound of it colliding with it.
The researchers said that these shots provided “a very localized sound source, at a distance of between two and five meters from their target, and the exact timing of their firing was known.”
There was a surprise, as the speed of the laser sound reached 250 meters per second.
In situ recording of Mars soundscape – Nature https://t.co/imMTIQBYRV
— nature (@Nature) April 1, 2022
Sylvester Morris, lead author of the study and co-scientific director of the robot’s “SuperCam” device, which has a microphone designed by a company in Toulouse, France, said he initially thought that “one of the measurements may not be correct, as there is only one speed of sound on Planet Earth, near the surface.
But according to the data, it was found that there are two speeds of sound on Mars: one for high intensity sounds (such as a laser), and the other for low intensity sounds (such as the sound of a helicopter).
Morris, an astrophysicist at the Research Institute of Astrophysics and Planets at the University of Toulouse, added, “Sound imparts more powerfully on Mars than on Earth, especially high pitched sound that fades away very quickly, even at a short distance,” which leads, for example, to , until it makes “a difficult conversation between two people only 5 meters apart.”
Morris explained that if one attends a concert, the sounds of the music will come at a speed itself, whether it is low or high. On Mars, “if you are a little further from the stage, it will take a long time for the sound to arrive.”