Data from the powerful scientific tool includes sounds from the laser sinking onto a rock to test what it’s made of.
The first measurements from the SuperCam instrument aboard NASA’s Perseverance rover have arrived on Earth. SuperCam was jointly developed by the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) in New Mexico and a consortium of French research laboratories under the auspices of the Center National d’Etudes Spatiales (CNES). The instrument provided data to the French space agency’s operations center in Toulouse, including the first audio from laser zaps on another planet.
“It’s amazing to see that SuperCam works so well on Mars,” said Roger Wiens, lead investigator on Perseverance’s SuperCam instrument at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. “When we first came up with this instrument eight years ago, we were concerned that we were far too ambitious. Now it works like a charm up there. “
“The sounds obtained are of a remarkable quality,” said Naomi Murdoch, a research scientist and lecturer at the ISAE-SUPAERO Aerospace Engineering School in Toulouse. “It’s incredible to think we’re going to do science with the first sounds ever recorded on the surface of Mars!”
On March 9, the mission released three SuperCam audio files. Obtained about 18 hours after landing, when the mast remained on the rover deck, the first file picks up the faint sounds of the Martian wind.
The wind is more audible, especially around 20 seconds, in the second audio file, recorded on the rover’s fourth day of Mars, or sol.
SuperCam’s third file, from Sol 12, contains the zapping sounds of the laser hitting a rock target 30 times from a distance of about 10 feet (3.1 meters). Some zaps are slightly louder than others and provide information about the physical structure of the targets, such as the relative hardness.
“I would like to extend my heartfelt thanks and congratulations to our international partners at CNES and the SuperCam team for joining us on this memorable journey with us,” said Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator for science at NASA headquarters in Washington. “SuperCam really gives our rover the eyes to see promising rock monsters and ears to hear what it sounds like when the lasers hit them. This information is essential in determining which samples to store and ultimately return to Earth through our groundbreaking Mars Sample Return campaign, which will be one of the most ambitious achievements humanity has ever undertaken. “
The SuperCam team also received excellent first datasets from the instrument’s visible and infrared sensor (VISIR) and the Raman spectrometer. VISIR collects light reflected from the sun to study the mineral content of rocks and sediments. This technique is in addition to the Raman spectrometer, which uses a green laser beam to induce the chemical bonds in a sample to produce a signal depending on which elements are bound together, and in turn provides insight into the mineral composition of a rock.
“This is the first time an instrument has used Raman spectroscopy anywhere other than Earth!” said Olivier Beyssac, CNRS research director at the Institut de Minéralogie, the Physique des Matériaux et de Cosmochimie in Paris. “Raman spectroscopy will play a vital role in characterizing minerals to gain a deeper understanding of the geological conditions under which they formed and to detect potential organic and mineral molecules that may have been formed by living organisms.”
More about the mission
SuperCam is run by Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, where the instrument’s Body Unit was developed. That part of the instrument contains various spectrometers, control electronics and software.
The unit was developed and built by various laboratories of the CNRS (French National Center for Scientific Research) and French universities on behalf of CNES. Calibration targets on the rover deck are provided by the Spanish University of Valladolid.
A major goal of Perseverance’s mission on Mars is astrobiology, including the search for signs of ancient microbial life. The rover will characterize past geology and climate, pave the way for human exploration of the Red Planet and be the first mission to collect and store Martian rock and regolith (broken rock and dust).
Subsequent NASA missions, in collaboration with ESA (European Space Agency), would send spacecraft to Mars to collect these sealed samples from the surface and return them to Earth for in-depth analysis.
The Mars 2020 Perseverance mission is part of NASA’s Moon to Mars exploration approach, including Artemis missions to the moon that will help prepare for human exploration of the Red Planet.
JPL, which is operated for NASA by Caltech in Pasadena, California, built and operated the Perseverance rover.
For more on perseverance:
mars.nasa.gov/mars2020/
nasa.gov/perseverance
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