NASA’s Perseverance rover recorded a sound of itself circling the surface of the Red Planet, adding a whole new dimension to exploring Mars.
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When the Perseverance rover began to make footprints on the surface of Mars, a sensitive microphone it was wearing marked a novelty: the thump, rattle, and rattle of the robot’s six wheels as they rolled across Mars’ terrain.
“A lot of people, when they look at the images, don’t know that the wheels are metal,” said Vandi Verma, a senior engineer and rover operator at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. “When you ride on rocks on these wheels, it’s actually really loud.”
More than 16 minutes of sounds from Perseverance’s 27.3-meter ride on March 7 were picked up by the Perseverance Entry, Descent and Landing (EDL) microphone, which remains operational on the rover after its historic landing on March 18.
The standard microphone was added to the rover to help carry the audience during the journey during landing, but mission members were also keen to hear sounds from the surface.
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“If I hear these noises while my car is moving, I will stop and ask to be towed,” Dave Gruel, chief engineer of the Mars 2020 EDL camera and microphone subsystem, said in a statement. consider what you are listening to and where it is recorded, it makes sense. “
Two versions of the audio clip have been released. The first version features more than 16 minutes of raw, unfiltered sounds from the rover traveling through the Jezero crater. In it, you can hear the sound generated by the interaction of the Perseverance mobility system (the wheels and suspension) with the surface, along with a high-pitched scratch noise.
The Perseverance engineering team continues to assess the source of the scraping noise, which could be electromagnetic interference from one of the rover’s electronics boxes or interactions between the mobility system and the surface of Mars.
The EDL microphone is not designed for surface machining and has undergone limited testing in this configuration prior to launch.
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The second version is a shorter compilation of sounds from the unit’s longest unedited recording. For this 90-second version, NASA engineers combined, processed, and edited three segments of the raw audio file to filter out some of the noise.
This first audio of a journey across the surface of Mars joins a growing playlist of sounds from Mars conveyed to Earth by Perseverance.
A second microphone, part of the rover’s SuperCam instrument, previously picked up the whispers of the Martian wind and the rapid tap of the instrument’s laser beams to reveal details of structure and composition.
Such information will help scientists search the Jezero Crater for signs of ancient microscopic life, taking samples of rocks and sediments to be returned to Earth for future missions.
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The sounds from the SuperCam were part of a series of system controls that the rover went through, from disassembling Perseverance’s massive robotic arm to making its first meteorological observations with the Mars Environmental Dynamics Analyzer.
The rover was also looking for a suitable airfield for the Ingenuity Mars Helicopter to conduct its first flight tests.
Now that the right spot has been found, teams of both vehicles are making plans for the rover to deploy the helicopter, which will take 30 Mars days or soles (31 Earth days) to complete up to five test flights.
And then the search for the old life will begin in earnest, with Perseverance to explore terrain that was thought to be covered with water. Between the rover’s 19 cameras and its two microphones, the experience is packed with images and sound.
For Verma, who has helped “pilot” the last four NASA rovers on Mars, planned their routes, and passed on instructions so that they can one day drive through unfamiliar territory, the audio is beyond great.
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“We have a visual sense of the variations between Earth and Mars,” he said. “But sound is a completely different dimension: seeing the differences between the Earth and Mars and experiencing that environment better.”
The sound of perseverance can be heard here:
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