The Sound Of Mars Is. . .Underwhelming

NASA has given us the first sound from Mars, courtesy of its Perseverance Rover. While the technology behind capturing the sounds is unbelievable, the actual sounds themselves weren’t all that much.

It turns out that Mars is a very quiet world thanks to its thin atmosphere that’s mostly made up of carbon dioxide. Sound doesn’t travel well in that environment, as you can hear from the recording, resulting in sounds that are about 20dB weaker than what you’d find here on earth. You can barely hear the background wind, but you can hear the sounds of the Ingenuity helicopter and the rover’s laser very clearly.

Perseverance is fitted with two microphones and they’re both DPA’s, which isn’t surprising as the company has long been the standard in instrumentation mics.

Take a look at this excellent video from NASA to hear the sound of Mars for yourself.

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