NASA’s Perseverance Rover recorded a sound surrounding the surface of the Red Planet, adding a new dimension to Mars exploration.
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When the Perseverance rover began to make its mark on the surface of Mars, a sensitive microphone it carried marked a novelty: the pounding, the noise, and the noise of the robot’s six wheels as they rolled across the Martian terrain.
“A lot of people, when they look at pictures, don’t think the wheels are metallic,” said Vandi Verma, chief engineer and rover driver at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. “When you drive on these wheels on rocks, it’s actually very hard.”
More than 16 minutes of sound from 27.3 meters of Perseverance on March 7 were captured 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 transport the public during the trip during the landing, but mission members were also eager to hear sounds from the surface.
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“If I hear these sounds driving my car, I stop and ask it to be towed,” said Dave Gruel, chief engineer for the EDL Mars 2020 camera and microphone subsystem. “But if you need a minute to consider what what you listen to and where it was recorded makes a lot of sense. “
Two versions of the audio clip have been released. The first version contains over 16 minutes of raw, unfiltered sounds from the rover traveling in Jezero crater. In it you can hear the noise generated by the interaction of the Perseverance mobility system (wheels and its suspension) with the surface, along with a loud scratching noise.
The Perseverance team of engineers continues to evaluate the source of the scraping noise, which may be electromagnetic interference from one of the rover’s electronic boxes or interactions between the mobility system and the Martian surface.
The EDL microphone was not designed for surface operations and had limited testing in this configuration prior to launch.
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The second version is a shorter compilation of sounds from the longest raw recording of the unit. For this 90-second version, NASA engineers combined three segments of the raw audio file, processing and editing them to filter out some of the noise.
This first sound of a trip to the Martian surface joins a growing playlist of the sounds of Mars transmitted to Earth out of perseverance.
A second microphone, which is part of the rover’s SuperCam instrument, previously took over the whispers of the Martian wind and the quick ticking of the instrument’s laser-struck rocks to reveal details about its structure and composition.
Such information will help scientists as they search for Jezero Crater for signs of ancient microscopic life, taking samples of rocks and sediments to be returned to Earth in 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 removing the massive robotic arm of Perseverance to making his first meteorological observations using the Mars Environment Dynamics Analyzer.
The rover also looked for a suitable airfield for the Ingenuity Mars helicopter to test its first flight tests.
Now that the right place has been found, teams on both vehicles are making plans for the rover to release the helicopter, which will take 30 Martian days or soles (31 days on Earth), to complete up to five test flights.
And then the search for ancient life will begin in earnest, Perseverance exploring the land once thought to be covered by water. Between the 19 rooms of the rover and its two microphones, the experience will be full of images and sounds.
For Verma, who helped “drive” the last four NASA rovers on Mars, planning their routes and transmitting instructions so that they could one day travel on unexplored ground, the sound is beyond the sea.
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“The variations between Earth and Mars, we have a visual sense for that,” he said. “But sound is a whole other dimension: seeing the differences between Earth and Mars and experiencing that environment more closely.”
The sound of Perseverance can be heard here:
EUROPA PRESS