There are two speeds of sound on Mars — one for high-pitched noises like the zap of a laser and another for lower frequencies like the whir of a helicopter rotor, scientists have revealed.
The first audio recordings on the Red Planet were obtained by NASA’s Perseverance rover after it landed in February last year and deployed its two microphones.
Experts have now given their first analysis of five hours of sound picked up by the rover, which revealed a quiet planet with occasional gusts of wind where two different speeds of sound would have a strange delayed effect on hearing.
The findings suggest that trying to talk in the Red Planet’s atmosphere might produce a weird effect, since the higher-pitched sound seems to travel faster than bass notes.
The audio also captured previously unknown turbulence on Mars, according to Sylvestre Maurice, the scientific co-director of the shoebox-sized SuperCam mounted on the rover’s mast which has the main microphone.
The international team listened to flights by the tiny Ingenuity helicopter, which was transported to Mars on the belly of Perseverance, and heard the rover’s laser zap rocks to study their chemical composition.
This made a ‘clack clack’ sound, Maurice told AFP.
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SOURCE: Daily Mail, Sam Tonkin; AFP
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