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Jul 13, 2022
2 min read
Why Noises Sound Quieter on Mars
Have you ever wondered what a conversation on Mars would sound like? Aside from the fact that Mars is super cold, and your teeth would probably be chattering, a conversation on Mars is surprisingly quiet. This is due to all the carbon dioxide floating around in the thin atmosphere that does not carry sound. A person standing right next to you might sound like they are speaking about 60 meters (200 feet) away!
An international team of scientists led by Sylvestre Maurice, an astrophysicist at the University of Toulouse in France, studied the recordings from Perseverance, NASA’s robot that is currently on the surface of Mars, with 2 microphones. One microphone is located on the robot’s mass and the other one is on the chassis or base. “It’s a new sense of investigation we’ve never used before on Mars,” Maurice said. “I expect many discoveries to come, using the atmosphere as a source of sound and the medium of propagation.”
Other than the mechanical noises associated with the rover and its helicopter, the microphones have picked up nothing but a whole lot of silence coming from Mars. At one point, even the international team thought that the microphones were broken due to how quiet everything was on Mars. This is because the atmospheric pressure on Mars lowers the speed and distance of sound on the planet. A sound that travels between 537 mph and 559 mph on Mars typically travels at 767 mph on Earth. Meanwhile, sounds begin to drop after traveling about 26 feet on Mars, compared to 213 feet on Earth.
“Let’s say you somehow had a city on Mars, with birds,” says Baptiste Chide, a key member of the team of scientists. “Birds are too high in frequency. You wouldn’t hear them. You would only hear the sounds of the city.” Of course, there are no birds on Mars, and there might not ever be. The point is that Mars’ thin atmosphere which is mostly made from carbon dioxide would quiet down the noise so much that it’s almost absolute silence.
Citations
https://www.upi.com/Science_News/2022/04/01/Mars-sound-NASA/7001648848547
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On the Fitz
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Home
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On the Fitz
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EWC Community
Jul 13, 2022
2 min read
Why Noises Sound Quieter on Mars
Have you ever wondered what a conversation on Mars would sound like? Aside from the fact that Mars is super cold, and your teeth would probably be chattering, a conversation on Mars is surprisingly quiet. This is due to all the carbon dioxide floating around in the thin atmosphere that does not carry sound. A person standing right next to you might sound like they are speaking about 60 meters (200 feet) away!
An international team of scientists led by Sylvestre Maurice, an astrophysicist at the University of Toulouse in France, studied the recordings from Perseverance, NASA’s robot that is currently on the surface of Mars, with 2 microphones. One microphone is located on the robot’s mass and the other one is on the chassis or base. “It’s a new sense of investigation we’ve never used before on Mars,” Maurice said. “I expect many discoveries to come, using the atmosphere as a source of sound and the medium of propagation.”
Other than the mechanical noises associated with the rover and its helicopter, the microphones have picked up nothing but a whole lot of silence coming from Mars. At one point, even the international team thought that the microphones were broken due to how quiet everything was on Mars. This is because the atmospheric pressure on Mars lowers the speed and distance of sound on the planet. A sound that travels between 537 mph and 559 mph on Mars typically travels at 767 mph on Earth. Meanwhile, sounds begin to drop after traveling about 26 feet on Mars, compared to 213 feet on Earth.
“Let’s say you somehow had a city on Mars, with birds,” says Baptiste Chide, a key member of the team of scientists. “Birds are too high in frequency. You wouldn’t hear them. You would only hear the sounds of the city.” Of course, there are no birds on Mars, and there might not ever be. The point is that Mars’ thin atmosphere which is mostly made from carbon dioxide would quiet down the noise so much that it’s almost absolute silence.
Citations
https://www.upi.com/Science_News/2022/04/01/Mars-sound-NASA/7001648848547
