We all should consider ourselves privileged for living during incredible times for science. NASA is on a sure way to put an important rover on Mars in February. The machine has the mission to study the rock record for revealing more about the geologic processes that modified the Martian crust and surface.
Astronomers also hope that NASA’s rover will find signs of ancient microbial life, thus paving the way for exploring the Red Planet’s past habitability. The Ingenuity helicopter drone will also be joining the Perseverance rover. NASA began the mission on 30 July 2020 at 11:50 UTC, and the touch down will occur in the Jezero crater of Mars. But not everybody knows that Perseverance is also capable of hearing things in space, as autoevolution.com reveals to us.
Beware of the high-pitched squeal
We hate to disappoint you, but the high-pitched squeal that Perseverance is hearing doesn’t belong to any alien saying ‘hello!’. The sound belongs to both the rover and its heat rejection fluid pump. The latter has the purpose of helping maintain operational temperatures for the vehicle’s components.
Dave Gruel, the lead engineer for Mars 2020’s EDL Camera and Microphone subsystem, declared:
With apologies to the person who came up with the slogan for ‘Alien,’ I guess you could say that in space no one may be able to hear you scream, but they can hear your heat rejection fluid pump,
The microphone we included to hear what it’s like to land on Mars was actually able to pick up Perseverance’s thermal system operating in the vacuum of space through mechanical vibration.
Sounds usually need air to travel, and there’s barely any sound in space due to the lack of air. But the Perseverance rover is dealing with an exceptional case: sound waves are travelling through solid objects as well, get intercepted by an electrical component, and become an electrical signal. If you also have some processors involved, you get the full picture of the rover’s sounds in space.
