The first audio recordings on Mars reveal a quiet planet with occasional gusts of wind where two different speeds of sound would have a strange delayed effect on hearing, scientists said.After NASA's Perseverance rover landed on Mars in February last year, its two microphones started recording, allowing scientists to hear what it is like on the Red Planet for the first time.In a study published in the Nature journal, the scientists gave their first analysis of the five hours of sound picked up by Perseverance's microphones.
The audio revealed previously unknown turbulence on Mars, said Sylvestre Maurice, the study's main author and 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, a sister craft to Perseverance, and heard the rover's laser zap rocks to study their chemical composition—which made a clack sound.