02/24/2021 14:06
Clarín.com
Technology
Updated 02/24/2021 2:06 PM
After exceeding the tense expectation of the landing, NASA's Perseverance rover began sending material from the red planet.
The big news came Saturday, as
microphones attached to the rover
captured an unprecedented audio recording
.
The US space agency released the first audio from Mars on Monday, a slight sound of wind captured by the Perseverance exploration vehicle, as well as a video of that device's arrival on the red planet.
But the first one-minute version
was contaminated by impurities from the environment
.
So NASA leaked out some couplings and distortions to deliver a clean and clear version.
"Imagine sitting on the surface of Mars and listening to your surroundings.
Within 10 seconds there was a real gust of wind on the surface of Mars
, picked up by the microphone and sent back to us here on Earth," said Dave Gruel, engineer NASA Headquarters for Perseverance Camera and Microphone Systems, during a press conference.
First surface view of Jezero crater taken by the Perseverance rover.
Engineers equipped the rover with two microphones.
The one in the descent and entry chamber (EDL) was intended to
record landing sounds
.
And while it failed to capture any audio on Thursday, it survived the descent so it was able to record future sounds on the Martian surface.
The other device was designed to listen to the sounds of the rover, its SuperCam laser instrument, striking the rocks and soil of Mars.
Putting a microphone on the SuperCam gives the rover and the scientists analyzing its data another "sense" with which to probe the Martian rock.
The laser should make a pop when it vaporizes the rust red rock.
First image sent by the rover.
REUTERS
According to Gruel, both microphones will continue to collect audio for the remainder of Perseverance's mission.
The rover is set to spend the next two years scouring the Jezero crater river delta for signs of ancient alien life, and should collect its first rock samples if all goes according to plan.
For her part, Jessica Samuels, head of the Perseverance mission on the Martian surface, said that a flight of the
small helicopter that carries the vehicle
, called Ingenuity
, is being prepared
.
Photos of the descent of Perseverance.
REUTERS
But he clarified that "the team is still studying" that mission.
"We have not yet decided on a site" to do it, he added.
With Ingenuity, the first flight will be attempted on another planet, although for this it will have to deal with an atmosphere that has 1% the density of Earth.
The red wind
The Insight mission was the first to record audio of the Martian wind.
NASA's InSight mission stepped onto Mars on November 26, 2018 and within a few days of its arrival, its sensors have been able to capture the vibrations caused by the wind and
showed for the first time what gusts of Martian wind "sounded" like
.
As the InSight is a fixed module, the reception it achieved was not entirely clear, when compared with the audio of the Perseverance, which has greater mobility and a technology conditioned for these records.
Those recorded winds had
a force of between 16 and 24 kilometers per hour
, in a direction from northwest to southeast.
A historical audio file that reveals a type of sound never recorded to date.
It was the first time that the sound of the wind was recorded on Mars and although it does not sound very different from how it can happen in certain places on Earth, it is very striking.
SL
Look also
Interplanetary Internet, a project that is getting closer to being a reality
The conquest of Mars was open source: Ingenuity uses Linux