One might hope to hear something similar on another planet. The sound of occasional meteorite impacts, the groan of the quaking ground, and the whisper of an endless wind are some of the things that come to mind.
A front-row seat at the approach and retreat of a roaring devil will help drive the cycle of dust through the atmosphere and around the small, rusty world.
Since the landing of Perseverance on Mars in February 2021, the instrument has been put to good use. The mic is one of the recording tools on the rover.
It's thanks to this innovative piece of technology that we can hear the sound of a mini dust storm on another planet. At the same time, it's eerie and short.
"We can learn a lot more using sound than we can with some of the other tools," says planetary scientist Roger Wiens.
They take readings frequently.
Nearly 100,000 times a second is how long it takes for the microphone to let us sample. We can get a better idea of what Mars is like.
Perseverance's microphone only records for three minutes a day and it's the first time it's been used when a dust devil wanders past.
The rover passed over the dust devil on September 27th, 2021. The size of the dust devil was 25 meters wide and 118 meters tall, according to scientists.
By combining photographs with readings of wind, pressure, temperature, and dust, Perseverance was able to track the speed of the mini-Martian tornado as it passed.
The potential of acoustic data for resolving the rapid wind structure of the Martian atmosphere was demonstrated by the dust devil encounter.
In the recording, you can hear the silence reflecting the calm eye of the storm. The new information is valuable because of how it compares to other events.
The wind is fast but not as fast as a dust devil. The difference is that the air pressure on Mars is so low that the winds are just as fast as on Earth.
It's not a strong wind, but it's enough to cause a dust devil.
The data we're collecting on Mars is useful in many ways. It gives us a better idea of how the planet evolved and it also gives scientists clues to how other planets in the Universe might be evolving too.
As Mars is our nearest planetary neighbor, our histories are closely intertwined. The past and future of both planets can be compared.
One day, humankind wants to go to Mars. The way that wind might naturally clear solar panels, for example, can be seen in the recordings that hint at the sort of conditions we can expect.
There is different weather on Mars. We use all of our instruments and tools to get a sense of what it would be like to be on Mars.
The research has appeared in a journal.
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