High -pitched voices reach the listener faster than lower ones.
REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, NEW MEXICO — Scientists have confirmed the speed of sound in Mars very different from Earth’s atmosphere. They use the equipment on the rover Perseverance to study the red planet’s atmosphere.
This finding could have some strange consequences for future communication between Martians. The findings suggest that trying to talk in the Martian atmosphere might produce a strange effect. This is because high-pitched sounds seem to move faster than bass notes.
Reported from SciencealertThursday (24/3/2022), from a scientific perspective, findings announced at the 53rd Lunar and Planetary Science Conference by planetary scientist Baptiste Chide of Los Alamos National Laboratory, reveal that the speed of sound is not a universal constant.
The speed of sound can change, depending on the density and temperature of the medium through which it travels. The denser the media, the faster it goes. That’s why sound travels at about 343 meters per second in Earth’s atmosphere at 20 degrees Celsius, but also at 1,480 meters per second in water and at 5,100 meters per second in steel.
Mars’ atmosphere is much more tenuous than Earth’s, at about 0.020 kg/m3, compared to Earth’s, which is about 1.2 kg/m3. That alone means that the sound will spread out differently on the red planet. But the layer of atmosphere just above the surface, known as the Planetary Boundary Layer, has added complications to this sound.
During the day, surface heating produces convective updrafts that create strong turbulence. Conventional instruments for testing surface thermal gradients are very accurate, but are subject to various interference effects.
Luckily, Perseverance has something unique: a microphone that allows us to hear the sound of Mars, and a laser that can trigger the sound in time.
A SuperCam microphone is included for acoustic pressure fluctuations from the rover’s laser-induced damage spectroscopic instrument as it scrapes rock and soil samples on the Martian surface. This comes with very good benefits, it turns out.
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