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One of those missions includes NASA’s Perseverance rover. When it lands, we will be able to hear the sounds of Mars for the first time, thanks to the microphones mounted on the rover.
NASA’s interactivity compares sounds as we hear them on Earth to how they can sound on Mars, like birdsong or music. If you were to speak on Mars, your voice would sound more muffled and it would take longer for others to hear you.
So what will we be able to hear on Mars? The microphones should pick up sounds of the rover’s landing and work on Mars, as well as ambient noises like the wind. One of the microphones is located at the top of the rover’s mast, allowing it to pick up natural sounds and even rover activity – like when the rover’s laser zaps rock samples and turns them into plasma to find out. more on their composition.
“It’s amazing all the science we can get with an instrument as simple as a microphone on Mars,” said Baptiste Chide, postdoctoral researcher in planetary science at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and contributor to the SuperCam microphone, in a report. communicated.
The other microphone will listen to the sound of the pyrotechnic devices that deploy the parachutes upon landing and the rover’s wheels moving across the Martian surface.
“Recording audible sounds on Mars is a unique experience,” Chide said. “With the microphones on board Perseverance, we will add a fifth sense to the exploration of Mars. This will open up a new area of scientific investigation for the atmosphere and the surface.”
The Perseverance rover, tasked with searching for signs of ancient life, and the Ingenuity helicopter, which will be the first to fly to another planet, are due to land on Mars on February 18.
That doesn’t mean the planet hasn’t been buzzing with activity from the robotic explorers NASA has sent to Mars in recent years.
3000 days and more
The Curiosity rover is still running strong and investigating Mars since it landed in 2012 – and it has been 3,000 Martian days since Curiosity landed on the Red Planet.
Curiosity gradually climbed Mount Sharp, a mountain that stretches for 3 miles in the center of the 96-mile-wide Gale Crater.
To celebrate 3000 days on Mars, Curiosity took one of its famous panoramas. Geologists on the mission team were delighted to see rocks that look like shoals as Curiosity continues to climb.
The panorama includes 122 individual images captured on November 18.
The center of the panorama shows the floor of Gale Crater, and its northern edge is on the horizon. The top layer of Mount Sharp is visible to the right.
These shoal-like stones form when layers of softer rock erode off the slopes, leaving behind layers of harder cliff-like rock.
“Our science team is excited to find out how they formed and what they mean for the ancient environment of Gale,” Ashwin Vasavada, scientist for the Curiosity project, said in a statement.
InSight goes ahead without its “ mole ”
The InSight mission, which landed on Mars in 2018, has been extended for another two years and is expected to operate until December 2022, according to a NASA announcement.
Since InSight began investigating Mars, members of the mission team have learned more about the planet’s crust and mantle. They identified a number of earthquakes and established that Mars is seismically active.
Scientists also learned more about the Martian atmosphere, the magnetic field, and the inner structure of the planet.
During the extended mission, InSight will track seismic activity on Mars and study Martian weather.
One thing that won’t budge, however, is the seemingly doomed “mole,” or InSight’s thermal probe. The probe was intended to burrow below the Martian surface and take the internal temperature of Mars to better understand the heating behind the evolution of the planet.
Martian soil has a tendency to clump together, which has proven to be a hindrance for the mole as it has been trying to burrow since February 2019. Simply put, there isn’t enough friction for the mole to burrow. mole hammers itself lower than the 3 centimeters it has reached. Even tapping it with a shovel, located on InSight’s robotic arm, didn’t help.
“We’ve given him everything we have, but Mars and our heroic mole remain incompatible,” Tilman Spohn, principal investigator of the instrument, said in a statement. “Fortunately, we’ve learned a lot that will benefit future missions that attempt to dig the basement.”
This is the first time that a mission has attempted to dig underground on Mars. However, the knowledge gained from this attempt will inform future designs – especially for astronauts who may one day need to dig into Martian soil or instruments in search of life underground.
“We are very proud of our team who worked hard to bring InSight’s mole deeper into the planet. It was amazing to see them troubleshoot millions of miles away,” said Thomas Zurbuchen, Associate Administrator from NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, in a press release. “That’s why we take risks at NASA – we have to push the boundaries of technology to find out what works and what doesn’t.”
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