NASA’s Perseverance Rover’s New Driving Video On Mars With Insight Lander’s Recorded Strange Sounds
Physics Insight
Oct 21, 2021The video shows NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover using its auto-navigation, or AutoNav, technology to drive 548 feet (167 meters) on Sept. 12, 2021, the 200th Martian day, or sol, of the mission.
In the end of the video are dinks and donks recorded Sounds of Mars just after sundown on July 16, 2019 (Sol 226).
Imagery Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Sources: mars.nasa.gov/mars2020/multim…
mars.nasa.gov/news/8517/nasas…
mars.nasa.gov/mars2020/multim…
Yay! Finally something other than wind. The sounds start at 2:33. Fascinating. Possibly the sound of some rocks contracting with the evening temperature drop. Whatever is causing it, it is definitely pretty strange.
Ooh, from the second link:
INSIGHT MISSION NEWS | October 1, 2019
NASA’s InSight ‘Hears’ Peculiar Sounds on Mars
Put an ear to the ground on Mars and you’ll be rewarded with a symphony of sounds. Granted, you’ll need superhuman hearing, but NASA’s InSight lander comes equipped with a very special “ear.”
The spacecraft’s exquisitely sensitive seismometer, called the Seismic Experiment for Interior Structure (SEIS), can pick up vibrations as subtle as a breeze. The instrument was provided by the French space agency, Centre National d’Études Spatiales (CNES), and its partners.
SEIS was designed to listen for marsquakes. Scientists want to study how the seismic waves of these quakes move through the planet’s interior, revealing the deep inner structure of Mars for the first time.
But after the seismometer was set down by InSight’s robotic arm, Mars seemed shy. It didn’t produce its first rumbling until this past April, and this first quake turned out to be an odd duck. It had a surprisingly high-frequency seismic signal compared to what the science team has heard since then. Out of more than 100 events detected to date, about 21 are strongly considered to be quakes. The remainder could be quakes as well, but the science team hasn’t ruled out other causes.
So the labeling within the video is wrong, although the title is right; it was not the mics on Percy, but whatever, all good, eh.