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Cape Canaveral, Fla. (AP) – What would a dust devil sound like on Mars? By chance a NASA rover turned on its microphone when a spinning tower of red dust passed directly overhead and recorded the scam.
According to the researchers, although the thin atmosphere of Mars is quieter because it creates more sound and less powerful winds, it sounds like dust devils on Earth.
Naomi Murdoch of the University of Toulouse, lead author of the study, which appeared in Nature Communications, said last year, the dust devil came and went quickly on persistence, making the audio shorter. At the same time, the navigation camera on the parked rover captured images, while its weather observation instrument collected data.
“It was caught red-handed by Percy,” said co-author German Martinez of the Lunar and Planetary Institute in Houston.
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Mars has been photographed for decades But never heard of, dust devils are common on the Red Planet. It was of medium range: at least 400 feet (118 meters) high and 80 feet (25 meters) across, traveling at 16 feet (5 meters) per second.
Murdoch, who helped develop it, said the microphone picked up 308 dust pings as the dust devil hit it.
Murdoch said the appearance of the dust devil on September 27, 2021 was “definitely lucky”, with the rover’s supercam microphone being turned on for less than three minutes every few days. He estimated that only 1-in. 200 chance to capture dust-devil audio.
At 84 minutes collected in its first year, it was “just one Dust Devil recording,” he wrote in an email from France.
These records allow scientists to study Martian winds, atmospheric turbulence and now dust movement like never before, Murdoch said. “”The results demonstrate how valuable acoustic data can be in space exploration.”
In the search for rocks with signs of ancient microbial life, Diligence has collected 18 samples A view of what was once a river delta, far into Jesero Crater. NASA plans to return these samples to Earth after another decade. Helicopter Ingenuity has recorded 36 flights, the longest of which is nearly three minutes.
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