Scientists have discovered that dust tornadoes more than 118 meters high ripple along the surface of Mars.
Known as “dust devils,” these eddies reach speeds of 25 miles per hour (40 kilometers per hour), blowing up pebbles and particles as they go.
And the NASA rover made the first-ever audio recording of this phenomenon, which provides insight into the Red Planet’s atmosphere and climate. This could help engineers design future missions to Mars, as the dust bombardment has implications for the instruments we send out.
Perseverance landed in the Jezero crater on Mars on February 18, 2021, after a nearly seven-month space journey.
Since then, he has been looking for ancient biomarkers in the Martian mud, which could indicate the presence of alien life there. He is equipped with 23 cameras that help him navigate, assess his safety and collect visual data on objects near and far. One of these cameras is the “Supercam”, a suite of tools on Perseverance’s “head” that contains scientific instruments, cameras, and a microphone.
Sensors on landers and other rovers have detected vibrations on the surface of Mars in the past, but this microphone is the first of its kind.
It records samples nearly 100,000 times per second, giving researchers a stronger sense of environmental conditions on Mars.
“We can learn a lot more with sound than with other instruments,” said Dr. Roger Wiens, principal investigator of SuperCam.
Scientists from NASA and the French National Institute of Aeronautics and Space used the microphone to make the first-ever recording of an extraterrestrial dust devil.
Prior to this recording, data collected by Perseverance’s other sensors showed that more than 100 of these tornadoes had passed over the rover since touchdown.
However, because the microphone only works for three minutes a day, the dust devil’s voice wasn’t first captured until September 27, 2021.
You can clearly hear the wind blowing, with a faint crackle of grain bouncing off the rover’s exterior.
In addition to the audio recording, Perseverance took air pressure readings and time-lapse photos during the encounter.
The researchers hope the microphone will be able to capture the sound of dust devils appearing at different geological locations on Mars.
This will allow them to compare data from different records to see how the Martian landscape affects their properties.
