What do we hear on Mars?
A bluffing video widely relayed on social networks this weekend seems to answer this question.
Wrongly attributed to the NASA Perseverance robot, we explain where these images and sound come from.
What you may have seen
The video was posted to Twitter by the Science Club account and has been viewed over 6 million times.
Captioned "Incredible Mars (turn on the sound)", it was posted on February 18, the same day the Perseverance rover landed.
A timing that could have led to confusion.
Amazing Mars (Sound On 🔊) pic.twitter.com/6ZGc6bLBrN
- Science Club (@ IrfanKh65232660) February 18, 2021
The video sweeps from right to left a rocky landscape with orange hues.
She hints at a powerful wind.
But nothing is coming from Perseverance, which, at the time of the publication of the Science Club account at 6:43 a.m., was still in space.
Where did this video come from?
It actually comes from the big brother of Perseverance, the robot Curiosity, which has been rummaging the soil of the planet Mars since 2012. In March 2020, NASA has indeed published a panorama made up of a thousand pictures recorded by Curiosity between the 24th. November and December 1, 2019. And it is the animation of this panorama that the Science Club account relayed on Twitter.
In addition, some clues prove that the images do not come from Perseverance.
Already, we can clearly see at the end of the video the inscription "Curiosity" on the arm of the probe.
Images of Mars taken by Curiosity.
(Screenshot.) Nasa / Curiosity
Also note, Curiosity does not have an on-board microphone, unlike Perseverance which will be able to offer us the first Martian sound in history, thanks to its two microphones, one of which was developed by Isae-Supaero from Toulouse.
NASA should confirm "earlier this week" if its robot was able to record alien sound.
NASA's Insight probe did pick up a sound on Mars in 2018. However, these sounds had not been recorded by a microphone, but by the French seismometer SEIS.
This data was then reworked to create sound.
The real pictures taken by Perseverance
The first photos taken by Perseverance on Mars were released on Friday.
On one of them, we can see the rover suspended two meters from the ground just before landing.
It was taken from below the descent stage and shows the bottom of the robot, its six wheels deployed, and beneath it, the vastness of Martian soil.
The Best is Yet to Come.
This high-res image shot by @NASAPersevere while landing on Mars is part of a video taken by several cameras on board that is still being relayed to Earth and processed.
https://t.co/uu8DlvlU2u #CountdownToMars pic.twitter.com/wVTbn81JvF
- NASA JPL (@NASAJPL) February 20, 2021
In another image, the first in color sent by Perseverance from the surface of Mars, the shadow of the vehicle is drawn on the ground, where there are some rocks, and in the distance on the horizon, a relief-like shadow from a cliff.
An open horizon, with so much to explore.
Can't wait to get going.
#CountdownToMars pic.twitter.com/hAaxeVGs04
- NASA's Perseverance Mars Rover (@NASAPersevere) February 19, 2021
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In summary
The video of Mars with sound that has been running on social networks since February 18 does not come from the rover Perseverance.
The images are very real, but they come from the Curiosity robot.
The Curiosity rover does not have a microphone.
To hear the very first Martian sound in history, you will have to wait for the recordings of Perseverance, which has two microphones.
