NASA’s Mars rover Perseverance has detected that sound moves more slowly on the Red Earth than on Earth and created some unexpected ways to have other effects for communication on Earth.
The sound waves move slowly Marsthe sky before they do Earth. This is good, because the speed of sound depends on the thickness of the object to which the sound waves travel (and, in some cases, the temperature). In Earth’s atmosphereat 68 degrees Fahrenheit (20 degrees Celsius), the sound travels at 1,125 feet (343 meters) per second, but in the extreme form of water, it moves at 4,856 feet per second (1,480 m/s), according to the word. Scientific alert.
Mars’s atmosphere is 100 times thinner than Earth’s, so sound moves slowly there, traveling at 787 feet per second (240 m / s), according to Science Alert.
But NASA Patience The rover, which landed on the Red Planet in February 2021, has discovered some other things about sound on Mars that scientists did not expect, according to new research reported in 53rd Lunar and Planetary Science Conference earlier this month.
Select: The best Mars and Perseverance rover models will not be able to travel to Earth until 2033
Measurements performed by a team of scientists from Los Alamos National Laboratory, a U.S. Department of Energy in New Mexico, using a microphone on the SuperCam Perseverance device showed that the sound is much faster. higher on Mars than the lower echelons, something that is found in other places.
Scientists say that these differences can be explained by temperature changes during the first 6 miles (10 kilometers) of Mars’ space above Earth’s surface. During the day, when the sun’s rays hit the Martian rock, convective drafts and turbulence awaken this layer of the Martian atmosphere, also known as the Planetary Boundary Layer. That changes the way carbon molecules look. the sky of Mars there is 96% carbon dioxide, but the air pressure there is very low. (For comparison, only 0.041% of the carbon dioxide is in the earth’s atmosphere.)
“Because of the unique properties of carbon molecules at low temperatures, Mars is the only planet Earth in the solar system that detects a change in the speed of sound in the middle of the audible bandwidth (20 Hertz or 20,000 Hertz), ”the researchers wrote on a piece of paper presented at the conference.
At frequencies above 240 Hertz, “there isn’t enough time to rest, or return to their original state,” the researchers said, which is the result of sound waves at higher frequencies going. measuring more than 32 feet. per second (10 m / s) is faster than the low pressures.
That is, if you are standing on Mars, listening to distant music, you will hear loud voices before you hear low voices.
The company plans to continue using SuperCam microphone data to monitor the impact of things like daily and seasonal changes in the speed of sound on Mars. They also plan to compare acoustic heat readings to readings from other instruments to try to detect significant changes, according to a statement in Science Alert.
The paper can be found on the conference website.
Follow Tereza Pultarova on Twitter @TerezaPularova. Follow us and Twitter @Spacedotcom and above Facebook.
