NASA has released an audio recording of its Perseverance rover firing lasers at the surface of Mars. The attacks, which sound like a series of small clicks, are designed to help scientists analyze the rocks around the rover. In this case, the target was a rock called “Máaz”, which scientists could discover to be basalt, BBC news reports, meaning it is high in magnesium and iron.
According to the NASA site, the laser is fired by Perseverance’s “SuperCam” and the rover can “zap and study areas on a rock as small as the tip at the end of this sentence” from 20 feet (7 meters) away. away. Once the laser has fired on a rock, it uses its camera and spectrometer to analyze the hot gas in which the rock has evaporated. The sound the laser makes provides additional data about the rock being studied.
You listen to the first audio recordings of laser attacks on Mars. These rhythmic tap sounds heard through the microphone of my SuperCam instrument have varying intensities that can help my team figure out the structure of the rocks around me. https://t.co/nfWyOyfhNy
– NASA’s Persistence Mars Rover (@NASAPersevere) March 10, 2021
Since its successful landing last month, Perseverance has returned a variety of images and audio recordings from the surface of Mars. While images of the planet are nothing new, this is the first time a Martian rover has actually used a microphone from the surface of Mars. NASA’s site notes that of two previous spacecraft that carried microphones to Mars, one failed and the other never turned on the microphone.
All of these data points are essential to help the SUV-sized rover search for signs of life and analyze the geology of the red planet. It is currently planned to spend a Mars year or two Earth years exploring the area around the landing site, which is believed to have been a lake billions of years ago.