A selfie of the Rover Perseverance next to the small Ingenuity helicopter. – Nasa-UPI-Sipa
- The Toulouse-made microphone of the Perseverance rover was able to record the sound of the blades of the Martian drone Ingenuity.
- Given the low density of the Martian atmosphere, scientists did not expect so much.
This buzz that you have to listen to to hear is “a gold mine” for scientists. On May 1, the microphone of the Martian rover Perseverance was able to pick up the sound of the blades of the small Ingenuity helicopter during its fourth flight on the Red Planet. The recording was made public on Friday May 9 by NASA and, in Toulouse, for researchers from the Higher Institute of Aeronautics and Space
(ISAE-SUPAERO) who developed the microphone under the leadership of Cnes, this soundtrack is “a great surprise”. Especially since the drone was 80 meters from the rover when it took off.
It happened this week: the first sound recording of a Martian helicopter! It was carried out by the microphone of the instrument #Supercam, who equips @NASAPersevere 👇 https://t.co/6PPdtckrYh
– CNES (@CNES) May 9, 2021
“The tests carried out in a Martian atmosphere simulator to design this instrument and our theories of sound propagation told us that the microphone would have great difficulty picking up the sounds of the helicopter,” explains Naomi Murdoch, the researcher responsible for analyzing the data. sound at ISAE-SUPAERO. The atmosphere of Mars, very sparse [équivalente à seulement 1 % de l’atmosphère terrestre], strongly attenuates sound transmission. We must have been a little lucky to register the helicopter at such a distance ”.
A piano “mi”
Luck was therefore there to deliver this background noise with a frequency of 84 hertz, which according to specialists is equivalent to “the low” E “of a piano or a human bass voice”, opening up new perspectives on the knowledge of the Martian atmosphere.
The microphone is installed on the Franco-American SuperCam instrument, whose laser eyes fragment Martian rocks, the associated sound making it possible to better characterize them. This “space ear” was put into service for the first time a few hours after the “landing” of Perseverance and has already given us the first impression of the turbulence and winds that shake the Red Planet.