Researchers Find Mars Sound Moves at 2 Speeds, With High Notes 10 Meters Per Second Faster
Updated
Updated · spacedaily.com · Aug 5
Researchers Find Mars Sound Moves at 2 Speeds, With High Notes 10 Meters Per Second Faster
2 articles · Updated · spacedaily.com · Aug 5
Summary
Perseverance microphone data showed sound on Mars travels at about 240 meters per second for low frequencies and 250 meters per second for higher ones, creating a split around 240 hertz.
95% carbon-dioxide air at roughly 0.6 kilopascals causes the effect: CO2 molecules exchange energy with sound waves differently at low pressure, while the thin atmosphere also heavily absorbs higher frequencies.
8 meters is about where sound begins to fail on Mars, NASA says, leaving voices quieter and duller as treble fades and high and low components drift slightly out of sync over distance.
4 hours 40 minutes of recordings from Jezero Crater, including Ingenuity rotor noise and laser strikes on rocks, also gave scientists the first detailed Martian soundscape and a new way to probe temperature, wind and turbulence.
1 April 2022 marked the Nature publication that framed acoustics as a new Mars tool, with pressure variations measurable at scales up to 1,000 times smaller than earlier observations.