NASA has a little treat for all the space buffs out there.
NASA has released the audio track of the sounds taken by the built-in microphone of the Perseverance Rover. The Perseverance rover, the first spacecraft to rig using audio equipment, aims to land on the Jessero crater on Mars on February 18, 2021. NASA shared a 60-second audio file collected during the camera’s in-flight checkout. Microphone system in SoundCloud.
How did NASA capture sound in a space vacuum?
The U.S. space agency collected the file on October 19 after Earth engineers turned on the mic to check if the system was working properly. NASA said the whistling sound came from a liquid pump that rejects the rover’s heat. Noise does not travel through space, but NASA is able to capture visor as mechanical vibrations as it travels through solids.
(Image shows the EDL microphone on the persistence rover)
I apologize to the person who came up with the slogan “Alien” and I hope you can tell that no one can hear you screaming in space, but they can hear your heat refusing liquid pump. Listen to how we landed on Mars to capture the persistent thermal system operating in space vacuum through the microphone mechanical vibration we incorporated, ”said Dave Grewel, Mars 2020’s EDL camera and lead engineer for the microphone subsystem.
The Perseverance rover, which will be accompanied by the Ingenity Mars helicopter, will touch down on the Jessero crater on Mars on February 18. Launched in July 2020, the rover will conduct tests and collect samples for 1 Mars year, ending 600 days on Earth.
(Image credit: NASA)